When was the last time you asked a customer to rate their level of satisfaction with your service? If they came back with a great response, did you then ask if you could capture their experience in a success story? If not, you’re missing a great opportunity. Prospective clients want to know just how well you perform in real-world situations, why not tell them with a well-written success story?

Also referred to as case studies, the success story has the potential to impact readers throughout your industry. A company may be interested in the products you offer; another may be interested in partnering with you to expand both of your service portfolios; still another may be interested in what you can do to improve performance for their client base. Access to a success story demonstrates what you’ve done in the past and what you are likely to repeat in the future.

When writing the success story, be sure to capture five key elements:

• Information about the customer – what do they do?
• The challenge this customer was facing before they hired you.
• The opportunity this challenge presented with your portfolio of solutions.
• The solution that was put in place to address the customer’s challenges.
• The resulting benefits experienced by the customer once your solution was in place.

Why does it matter what the company does when it comes to the success story? You need to not only demonstrate that this is a legitimate company and solution placement and not just a created scenario for marketing purposes. Plus, like-companies are interested in how your current clients are similar and how their challenges are likely to be the same.

Explaining the challenge the customer was facing is critical – if you didn’t solve an issue, remote a pain point or improve something, it’s not likely that you contributed much value in their environment. Demonstrate to your success story readers that the challenges were real and how they impacted your client.

The opportunity should be easy – you already discussed it with your customer before you started working with them. What kinds of improvements are possible with your solution or service? How can you improve operations for them? Why should they consider your service?

The solution you put in place is important in the success story as it is the resolution to the problem or pain point. It overcomes the challenges the customer is experiencing and delivers real-world benefits that are measurable. Tie the solution back to the challenges and opportunities, explaining why that particular solution was offered in this scenario.

Finally, discuss the results at length, and use numbers. If the customer experienced less downtime, quantify it; if they were able to generate more sales – put a dollar figure to it; if they streamlined hiring, explain the financial impact; if you improved efficiencies, explain where those improvements helped the bottom line.

Make writing success stories a primary focus for your organization. It’s not only an opportunity to brag about what you’re doing right; it’s also an opportunity to show potential clients what you can do for them.

If you need help in the process, this is where Susan J. Campbell Copywriting Solutions can help. We’ll call your happy customers, ask them questions pertaining to the five key elements that need to be captured, write the success story and even design it in a PDF to match your brand. Use the finished product to capture lead information when a potential client downloads the PDF and use it to drive traffic to your website.

There’s a lot of marketing potential in the success story – so what are you waiting for?