«Return to Blog List Right #2 of Case Studies that Compel & Sell – Right Time
Measurable results are the "Holy Grail" of the customer case study. But success in capturing them is largely a matter of timing.
It’s a lesson I’ve learned from firsthand experience.
Collect a customer’s story too early and there’s not enough to measure yet. For most products and services, customers usually need some time to see the full results.
Create it too late and the story loses some of its power. If the customer can’t remember the pain/problem of before because it’s been years, or your contact has left the customer organization, then it’s often hard to capture strong results or emotion.
You have to find the "Goldilocks" point of a customer’s story – when it’s just right.
But that time is different for each company, and each product or service offered. Maybe customers see the impact of your service immediately, or maybe they need a few months, or a year, to compare current metrics against the past with the use of your product.
Find that perfect timeframe. That’s when you want to check in with customers about documenting their experiences.
For your organization or clients, what has been your perfect timeframe?
I think that collecting the info in order to write a case study is a process and it starts from the first time you met the prospect – who will become a client later. Don’t rely on the client to remember what were the situation, their goals or dreams, and so on, but take notes of what is told along the project. Anyway to sign a conceptual agreement you need to write what is the situation, what are the objectives and what are the things to measure to check that the project is on the track (and checking meetings along the project). So if you follow the process and plan the project following the rules of the art, it should be easy to write a case study. Shouldn’t be?
Rosie (from France)