Do We Have the Technical Expertise to Write Your Case Study?
When your product or service is high-tech, you may wonder if our team has the expertise needed to write a case study about it.
And you’re right, we’re not software or data engineers, and we’ll never understand your technical product or service as well as you do.
Even so, that doesn’t mean we can’t tell your customer success stories.
In fact, if we wanted a fight, we’d argue that you’d struggle to find a software or data engineer who lives and breathes code—and who also runs amazing interviews and writes compelling stories that captivate, convince and persuade.
But instead of resorting to fisticuffs, let’s examine why we don’t have to be technical wizards to write your case studies.
We write for your buyer
Ultimately, your case study should focus on what the buyer cares about.
And most of the time, the buyer is interested in the high-level story—the problem, how you solved it, and what the experience was like—rather than the technical minutiae.
And that’s the kind of information our interviews are designed to uncover.
We ask questions that help customers relay their experience, the benefits they received, and why those benefits are important to them.
We’re not trying to create a technical manual. We’re trying to capture the customers’ experience in their own words.
We collaborate
Having said all that, we acknowledge there are times where a case study may have to briefly wade into technical waters.
In these cases, we rely on YOU to bring that technical expertise by providing us with a specific and accurate brief that tells the granular story.
We may also need to go back and forth with you to make sure that everything is correct. So if there’s something a bit technically off in the draft phase, you’ll have the opportunity to correct it or flesh it out.
So we CAN tell these stories, absolutely. But it does require you to be a bit more engaged.
Honestly, the hardest part for an interviewer isn’t understanding the technical aspects of a product or service.
The hardest part is sniffing out the most important information that will make your case study do what you want it to do.
That’s why we give our clients access to the audio recordings and transcripts of our interviews with their customers. If they identify a gap, we can follow up with the customer to fill it—and we’ll know what to look for during the next interview.
The more we do the better we get
You’ll also find that the more case studies we do for you, the less we’ll require your help with any technical aspects.
That’s why we strive to keep the same interviewer-writer team working with each client.
And if that’s not possible, the prior team member can coach the new addition to get them up to speed faster.
We probably know more than you think
While we can’t claim to be software or data engineers, some of our team members specialize in different industries or segments, (such as SaaS or marketing agencies) and many have contributed to dozens upon dozens (and in some cases, hundreds!) of case studies in those areas.
So if we have an in-house industry specialist on our team that lines up with your business (and we probably do), we’ll do our best to match you up.
There’s no room for a tech deep dive
One more reason why we don’t need to be technical experts: there’s no room for a tech deep dive.
Most case studies top out at around 1,500 words. Any longer than that, and you risk scaring off or losing your audience.
Fifteen hundred words may sound like a lot, but it’s not actually. Our writers need to keep the narrative tight and focused to make the most relevant points.
And when the parameters are that tight, you can’t afford to spend 500 words explaining the ins and outs of your technology.
Don’t get me wrong—there’s a time and place for that explanation for sure.
But it’s not in your case study.
You don’t have to be an engineer to ask smart questions
At the end of the day, a case study is a customer success story that describes the problem your customer had, the solution you put in place to fix it, and the results your customer achieved.
If we know what your KPIs are, what your solution does, and how it benefits your customer, that’s all we need to ask smart questions.
And we don’t have to be engineers to do that.
Give your high-tech product or service the case studies it deserves.
Contact us to start the conversation.