EYN#066: How To Tell A Customer Story - The Formula

Do you share case studies and customer stories with prospective customers?

There's no better way to convince someone your solution is great.  Share an amazing example from the past.  It's so powerful.

So many people don't invest in telling these stories.  Or if they do, they get them so wrong.  They miss out key sections.  They don't have great structure.  They don’t have the impact they should.

I've just started working with a customer again.  They asked me to help them tell their customer story and I used this framework to do it.  Check out the full story below.

But for now, here's the framework …. STAR.   I stole this framework from the recruiting scene.  It's great for answering interview questions.  But it works a treat here as well.

• Situation
• Target
• Action
• Result

Use this approach when you want to tell the customer story, or even use it for video case studies.  It's perfect.

Situation

Set the scene:

• Who is the story about? 
• What was the business problem they had?  Don't miss this out, even for technical audiences.
• If you're talking to a technical audience add the appropriate level of detail on the problem?
• Why did the problem need solving then?

Target

Where did they want to go:

• What was their vision?
• What were they trying to achieve?

Action

Share what they did:

• Did they use your service?  Did they deploy your solution?
• How did they do it?
• What challenges did they face?
• How did they overcome them?

Result

Share how it went:

• Did they achieve their vision?
• What were the outcomes?
• Were there any compelling data points?

 Why is this framework so good?  Well …

• It's got a great structure that’s easy to follow.
• It covers the What, Why and How.
• It shares the outcomes as well as the journey.

So let me finish telling my story using the STAR framework:

I've just started working with an old customer again.  They didn't have any video collateral to share with their customers.  They had some very happy customers, but the world didn't know.  They needed video content they could put on social channels, and send directly to prospective customers.  They needed to share their previous successes with the world.

So I helped them craft a narrative.  Define their key messages.  Then deliver those messages on camera brilliantly.  Even better we got the customer to tell their side of the story. Finally I produced some videos for them.

The outcome, they now have compelling, authentic stories they can share with the world.  They have a scalable way to highlight their experience solving customer pain.  They have some short form stories which are great for socials. They also have longer form versions for customers that really want to explore the story. 

They're about to use them in their next marketing campaign.

So don't forget to tell customer stories.  STAR is a great framework to do it.

Hope this helps

Ben