Case study interview preparation that respects customers
Prepare focused interviews that produce credible proof without leading participants or overclaiming outcomes.
Confirm permission and purpose
Confirm participation scope, sponsor, review process, publication channels, timing, and prohibited topics. An enthusiastic contact may not have authority to approve a public story, logo, performance data, or quotation. Define the audience decision the story should support rather than treating the interview as a search for praise.
Build a verified account brief
Collect goals, timeline, stakeholders, implementation records, service scope, prior public statements, and candidate outcomes from authorized sources. Mark each item verified, customer-reported, internally observed, or uncertain. Ask the account owner about sensitivities and unresolved issues without asking them to script the customer's answers.
Write open questions
Move from the participant's role and prior situation through evaluation, implementation, outcome, and lessons. Ask what happened and how they know. Prepare follow-ups for baseline, time period, measurement method, contributors, and alternatives. Do not embed a desired claim in a question or manufacture numeric precision.
Prepare the interview team
Assign one interviewer, note owner, and relationship owner. Decide who may ask sensitive follow-ups and who will stop a question outside scope. Test recording, consent language, time zones, accessibility, and backup notes. Share themes and review rights with the participant, not model answers.
Capture evidence and nuance
Distinguish direct quotations from notes and interpretation. Record speaker, time, context, and promised sources. If a number changes, flag it for verification instead of choosing the stronger version. Credible stories acknowledge customer contribution, operating context, constraints, and tradeoffs rather than crediting one vendor for everything.
Close the approval loop
Send next steps, evidence requests, review owner, and timeline. Trace every claim to the interview or an approved source. Treat customer edits and withdrawal rights according to the agreement. Store the approved version, approval evidence, permitted channels, and review date together to protect the relationship.
Before release, have someone who was not in the interview compare the draft with the evidence log. That reader can spot confident language that the source does not support. The customer should receive a clean, stable review version instead of being asked to reconcile several internal drafts.
Once the story is live, send the customer the exact public link and the contact for corrections. Monitor the agreed review date and any time-sensitive figures, titles, or product descriptions. If circumstances change, pause or amend distribution through the approved owner instead of leaving the customer to discover an outdated claim. A well-run interview process continues through publication and maintenance; the recorded approval is not permission to use the story forever in any format.
Sources
- Obtaining consent, UK Information Commissioner's Office. Explains clear, specific, informed, and withdrawable consent principles.
Related GTM guides
Frequently asked questions
Should customers get questions in advance?
Share themes and expectations, but avoid scripted answers that weaken authenticity.
Who approves outcome claims?
The customer and accountable company reviewers approve claims supported by traceable evidence. Internal enthusiasm does not replace the customer's authority over their quotation or confidential results. Keep the source for each statement visible during review and remove a claim when the evidence or permission does not cover the wording proposed for publication.