How to Know If You Have a Case Study or Just a Happy Customer

The most common case study problem is lack of strong narrative structure.

It’s easy to document what happened without explaining why it mattered, especially if you’re in a hurry to get to the success metrics. But compelling customer stories cover: what the customer needed, what stood in the way, and what changed for the people who had to live with the initial problem.

If the story can't answer those questions, the reader has no reason to care.

I use three core questions to test a story for readiness before the interview:

• What did the customer need? You don’t need to focus on what the solution does yet. What you want to find is whatever problem was urgent enough that the customer had to act on it.

• What stood in the way? Technically, organizationally, or both?

• What changed for the people who had to live with the problem before the solution existed? This could include employees, customers, and the organization as a whole.

If you can answer all three questions clearly before the interview, you probably have a story worth telling. You can get the necessary information from pre-interview questionnaires or by talking to the solution team and/or customer.

If you can't get the answers before the interview, you can still uncover them during the conversation if you know what you're listening for. I keep the story draft in mind during interviews. If the throughline isn’t clear, I keep digging.

I look for the core progression every good story has: a real problem, a reason it was hard to solve, and a change that matters. I also write fiction, and the questions I ask in a case study interview aren't that different from the ones I ask myself about my characters.

In cases where the three questions don't have strong answers yet, you can still create good content in other formats:

• Happy customers can provide pull quotes, testimonial videos, or reference calls.

• Co-hosted webinars work well too, as long as your customer contact was close enough to the implementation to speak from real experience.

If it’s not ready yet, the case study can wait. A customer who's willing to advocate for your solution is valuable in any format.