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A case study is an opportunity to tell your story – in your customer’s voice. It’s not a sales letter or a data sheet – it’s much more. Avoid “salesy” language and your internal terminology. Industry jargon is fine, but spell out first references.
Remember to be as specific as possible. Whenever possible, use actual numbers, including cost savings, revenue gains, sales growth, return on investment ROI) and total cost of ownership (TCO) or life value.
Don’t be afraid to include a strong customer quotes throughout your case study. You want to hear the pain in his/her voice as they remember the challenge they faced and the joy as your company helped them overcome obstacles.
41 Questions to Ask Your Customer and Build a Great Customer Case Study
Case Study Question Checklist
Customer Description
Who is the customer?
What do they do?
Who/what industry do they serve?
What is their unique value proposition?
What are they famous/recognized for in the industry?
Is there something that makes this customer instantly recognizable?
The Challenge
What situation did the customer need to change or improve?
What need/awareness precipitated the action – problems they were having, systems affected?
How widespread was the problem? Local, regional, global?
Were there special issues or challenges they faced? Industry guidelines? Government regulations? Compliance requirements?
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Your Relationship
What was your relationship with the customer? New customer? Existing customer? What else have you done with them?
How did the customer find out about you/your solution?
What other products or services did the customer investigate/compare to yours? Why didn’t these work out?
Who was involved from your company?
The Solution
What steps did you take to solve the problem? How was the solution developed?
What were the customer’s expectations?
How was your product or service implemented/executed/deployed?
What was the scope of work? Did it change during implementation?
Was there any downtime, service disruption, or special issue during the implementation? If so, how did you help the customer work around it?
What were the specific technologies/products/services involved? (This can often be handled as a boxed “Tools” section.)
Were there any special skills required to implement the solution?
Were there any project management issues? Surprises – good or bad? Stories from the deployment?
How long was it before your product/service/solution was up and running at 100%?
The Results
How well did your product/service/solution solve your customer’s problem?
What can customer do now that it couldn’t before?
How did your company distinguish itself?
What’s next?
What does the customer think about your company now?
