Personal recommendations are everything in business. They are endorsements from people who have tried your product and service and were so satisfied they wanted to share that positivity. In an ultra-connected online environment they have also taken on a huge role in our decision-making process, with 68% of people doing more business with a firm after positive reviews while each star on a company’s Yelp rating could be worth up to 9% in revenue.
For B2B businesses, such personal reviews from people who’ve dropped in off the street or paying a sports star to say “I only use Terry’s Toner for all my copying and printing needs” won’t really cut it with the target audience you’re trying to impress. For other businesses, it’s in-depth customer success stories that will get them over the line or convince them to renew.
How to Write a Customer Success Story
The reason why customer success stories are so successful is because they lay out a situation where a client had the exact pain points of your target leads, it describes how you provided solutions for their issues and catered to their needs and subsequently the client achieved greater success. That’s it in a nutshell, always make sure to include the following elements in a customer success story:
- Introduce the subject: A brief introduction of the client and what they do
- Set the scene: Outline the situation they were in and why they needed your help
- Enter the hero: Describe how your service or product changed the situation
- Happy ever after: Detail the results (with key statistics if possible) and the current state of play
Making the Most of Your Customer Success Stories
Once you know how to write a customer success story, the next step is figuring out how to best leverage that asset. People need to know how you have assisted your clients in real situations and here’s how to tell them.
Make Them Easily Accessible
Customer success stories are excellent marketing assets, especially for B2B companies, but all too often they get siloed away in your marketing materials, only ever shown to solid leads. Whether you just have a few or a whole library of them, it makes sense to give them a prominent position on your website, allowing drop-in visitors or search-driven leads to explore them at their own leisure.
Include Them in Your Sales Packages
As a core “convincer” a sales package should nearly always include at least one success story which applies directly to the lead being addressed. Your sales team can explain the features and benefits all they want but being able to see them through the eyes of a customer, applied in a real-life situation is a powerful weapon in your sales arsenal.
Create Compelling Visuals
Graphics are a great draw for people scanning a story they have happened upon, but a major draw is getting your leads to watch a short YouTube video (three minutes or less) where a client describes your product or service. Seeing things written down is one thing but seeing and hearing a genuine fellow executive talk about the effects of your partnership can be extremely effective.
Make Them a Focal Point of Ad Campaigns
If you have a particularly successful new story to tell, then use it as the central pillar of any online campaign, directing interested parties to an integrated landing page. A headline of “Charlie’s Chairs increased their productivity by 30% with this one simple feature. Read here to find out how.” is simple, to-the-point and if focused on the right audience and backed up by a great story, could be an absolute winner in terms of traffic and conversions.
At Planview AdaptiveWork we have a whole library of success stories, ranging from global leader in diamond exploration, mining and sales, De Beers, to medical device giant Boston Scientific. If you want to find out how Planview AdaptiveWork can help deliver better collaboration and increased productivity for your business, just like we have for thousands of others, check out one of our free demos here.
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