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Interviewing a satisfied client, putting their positive comments and quotes down on paper and having a professional writer edit it for clarity and readability results in a "Success Story," one of the most powerful tools you can arm your sales force with.
Here are the answers to a number of questions I'm frequently asked
about Success Stories:
Success stories are professionally written customer testimonials. There is no better way for prospects to gain an insight into a product than through existing customers' experiences of it.
Instead of giving out references, a hi-tech company can put client success stories on their website, or create a notebook of success stories for use by their sales force. Advertising based on end-user testimonials is exceedingly effective.
For starters, a reference account, even a happy one, may wander off into issues you'd prefer a prospect not hear. Second, engineers aren't always the greatest communicators. A success story highlights what you want highlighted: Your product, a specific feature or two, the client's success and satisfaction, benefits they've received, so forth. It's controllable, even down to what you quote them on.
Salesmen at firms using success stories I've written report additional sales of literally "millions of dollars." They attribute this to having well written, documented examples of customer success at their disposal. Success stories are an exceedingly powerful weapon in a salesman's "arsenal"
Success stories inform, educate, and document client satisfaction. They can be used to train and motivate salespeople and other new employees who may not know about all of your products' benefits, or who may not have heard about an extremely successful client in another salesman's territory.
It depends on the size of your company and the number of products you offer. For an Electronic Design Automation firm we wrote over 200 success stories documenting their products' successful usage in a variety of industries (consumer, aerospace, medical...). The stories were distributed to the sales force in a three-ring binder along with tabs and cross references. Their salesmen called it the "Thud" book because that was the sound it made when they dropped it on a prospect's desk, someone who'd (dared to) ask for "references." We also provided a searchable online database version for the sales force. For smaller firms with a single product we might write a half dozen profiles. Do you need to demonstrate a little success or a lot of success to your prospects?
Several reasons:
EEBC has launched, managed, and successfully concluded numerous "Success Story" campaigns, learning a number of valuable lessons along the way. Writing success stories isn't as easy as it sounds. Consider all the revisions, approvals needed, and so forth. We can handle those details for you and supply you finished stories, approved by your clients and their PR person.
Another reason: Although I have 20 years of engineering experience, I can't hope to understand your products as well as you or your clients do. So I allow them to tell me what is important to THEM rather than focusing the interview strictly on the features that you assume are the most important, or, perhaps mistakenly assume your prospects are already aware of.
Another benefit is that since I'm a third party, clients will often tell me things they won't tell you directly. I don't get defensive and lecture them on how they're using the product incorrectly. Often they'll tell me what features they like in your competitors' products. Uncensored feedback can greatly benefit your marketing staff, sales staff, tech pubs, and even product planning. I provide this in the form of "Customer Comments" that accompany each story.
You can certainly write Success Stories yourself if you've got the time, interviewing skills, writing skills, engineering background and experience I do. But don't you already have enough work on your plate?
I let you decide, but 600-1400 words is typical. Or we can let each story decide for itself.
I've written success stories for hi-tech companies including Oracle, Mentor Graphics, Synopsys, Ambit, Valor, a leading touch-screen manufacturer, and many other hi-tech firms. My background is BSEE/MBA, so I'm able to focus on business as well as engineering aspects of "Success."
It depends on who provides the names of the successful clients, who screens them, who handles obtaining approvals from the client's management or PR person, the total number of stories you want written, and the timeframe. Let's discuss what we can do within your budget.
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