![]() If that doesn't work, include personal stories within the write-up, from the perspective of a single individual at the customer (or the customer's customer) who faced a genuine problem before the problem was solved.For example, "The customer support team at Acme had a real problem - not enough hours in the day." The readers you are trying to reach are on similar teams, and can probably relate. Here are a few strategies for adding the human dimension to the story in these challenging situations. In a B2B business, you may not have permission to highlight individuals within your customer's organization. The best customer success stories follow a specific individual, highlighting their challenges and the steps they took to overcome them. Identify the hero of each story and ask yourself: Is it our company? Our technology? Our customer's brand? Or is it real people solving a business problem? Take a look at all of the customer stories you have right published right now. Pick the right protagonist and fill your story with people. The first, and most important, thing to do when writing your customer stories is this: ![]() These stories have no human faces, no hero that we can root for. For example: " Customer brand works with Company to deploy Product", or " Customer brand reduces customer support costs using Product."Ĭan you identify with a brand? How about a piece of software? Nope, me neither. But again, it's difficult to empathize with a brand. And yes, in the B2B sale, the customer is a business, not an individual. Yes, you should make the customer the focus. You may feel a connection to it, but your readers don't.īrand as hero: More often, you'll find a brand standing in for the protagonist: either the vendor's brand or, better, the customer's brand. Product-name enables IT to respond to issues quickly." The problem, of course, is that a product isn't a person. Here's an example, name obscured to protect the brand: " Product-name proactively monitors the customer's IT environment. Product as hero: It's tempting to make your own product the hero of the story - the thing that saves the day. The two most common protagonist problems are as follows: Many B2B customer stories choose the wrong protagonist, and that makes all the difference. The more powerful the connection to the protagonist, the more compelling we find the tale. ![]() We don't have to love them, but it's hard to get involved in a story when you don't care about anyone in it. The protagonist, or hero, should be someone that holds our interest. ![]() But nearly every definition agrees on the following:Ī story needs a protagonist that the reader/listener can identify with. Hint: Putting a data sheet into a challenge, purchase decision, results format doesn't make it a story.ĭefinitions of story vary you need conflict and resolution, three acts, etc. Having worked in the B2B technology sector for most of my career, I've read my share of deadly boring customer profiles that didn't feel one tiny bit like a story. It's no surprise that you can find a "Customer stories" section on the website of nearly every Business-to-Business (B2B company.) But too often these pieces fall short in one important dimension: the story. These stories can also inspired current customers to expand their usage of the product, learning from the experiences of others. Reading about other customers' successes reminds people of the wisdom of their decision. As I wrote in Subscription Marketing, customer stories are a readily-available method for value nurturing. No one enjoys suffering through a so-called customer story that is transparently self-serving for the vendor, or worse still, a rejiggering of the data sheet into a three-act format.Ĭustomer stories are too important, and too valuable as marketing content, to mess up. Worst of all, we dread having to write an "unattributed" success story, in which we cannot use real names. A well-crafted customer story gives reinforcing "social proof" to a prospect who is on the fence, and turns abstract feature descriptions into real-world examples.īut we don't love them when we cannot speak directly to the customer, or feel bound to make a tale out of what is, at best, a sale. Many marketers have a love/hate relationship with them. ![]()
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