One of the most powerful forms of website content is to have a customer talking about how they use your product or service, in a positive way. Ironically this is also one of the hardest pieces of content to secure for your site.
It’s well worth going through the pain in order to secure this great content, so I’ve tried to list out the pitfalls and how you can deal with them along the way.
Finding out the details
So to start with you need to get information on how they’re using your product/service in the first place. The more the merrier here but also the more details you need – the harder they are to get.
In an ideal world you want to cover:
1. How they’re using your product/service
2. What problem it’s solving for them
3. Why they chose you over another company/brand
4. What they’ve achieved since choosing you (numbers are key here, people love a good improvement stat)
Start with what you know yourself, and then go to anyone else in your business that may hold this information. Remember it’s not going to be their top priority so make it worth their while and shower them with lots of public praise if they follow through for you. Get the customer’s contact details and give them a call yourself – working through a middle man just takes longer and you’ll find most info you can get over the phone.
Numerous hours spent chasing details, changes & approvals
Because you need to have a customer sign off this case study or quote, they’re going to need to see it and they will highly likely have changes they want to make to whatever you have written. Don’t send them over something you consider is draft, get it written up properly and you will spend less time going backwards and forwards.
Make sure you avoid a middle man again and go direct to the customer yourself, in your email give them a deadline they can work to and then follow up with a call to make sure they received and understood.
Don’t chase by email and don’t leave messages on answerphones – this is your priority not theirs so speak to them directly.
Securing approval
Some customers may not like being talked about in the first place or don’t want to spend their time on this so give a nudge with an incentive if you can. It could be the idea of having their name on your site, it could be a discount on their next order or some vouchers as a thank you for their time.
Of course if they’ve not had a good experience with you in the first place you’re not going to get approval so don’t insult them by asking, do your homework!
