During the case study film production process, preparation is key. Your customer has agreed to give of their time to be interviewed on film, and you want to use the rare opportunity to:
- Produce a great video case study
- Build an even better relationship with your customer.
- Gather important information on how your product or service could be improved.
- Identify opportunities to potentially sell more to this customer (if appropriate).
- Find out whether this customer could refer you to any of the contacts in their network.
But preparing for your case study interview is important. We have provided below the 83 case study interview questions that you might want to ask. But don’t just ask them all – research in advance, and answer as many as you can before you even speak to your customer. That way you’ll impress them with your background knowledge and you’ll also potentially identify opportunities to improve the case study even further.
Start with the admin questions
- Can I confirm the spelling of your name?
- Can I confirm that your job title is ______?
- Can I confirm that your company name is spelled ______?
- Which social networks do you use personally?
Learn about the company
- I’ve read a little about your company, but perhaps you can share in your own words what ________ does?
- Can I confirm that the company has been around since____?
- And how long has your department been going?
- How many employees do you have?
- What is your revenue?
- Are we allowed to include revenue data in the case study?
- How many geographies do you operate in?
Understand the products and services
- Can you please tell me a little bit about the products and services you offer?
- Who is your target customer?
Get your head around their role
- I know that your job title is _____, but what does your day-to-day role involve?
- What are the objectives of your role?
- How long have you been in the role?
- How big is your team?
- Who do you report to?
Clarify their relationship with your own business
- How long have you been using our product / services?
- How did you first come across us?
- How long had you been looking?
- What did you do before using our product?
- What were the physical costs of this process?
- What were the human resources costs of this process?
- What was the opportunity cost of this process?
- How were your customers impacted by this process?
- What other challenges were you facing?
- What were the major challenges you were facing to prompt you to look for a product?
- Did our product replace another or was this the first time you had used such a product or services?
- What were your biggest concerns / reservations before using our product / service?
- Why didn’t you buy our product or similar product earlier?
- What reservations did you have during the buying process?
- What was the best thing about the buying process?
- What was the worst thing about the buying process?
- What would you change about the buying process?
- How did you find the buying process? What was your experience?
- How was the onboarding process?
- What factors were important to you when choosing a product like ours?
- Which alternatives did you consider?
- What were the major reasons you chose us?
- What decision-making criteria were there?
- Who was involved in the decision to buy?
- How long did it take to get set up / onboarded?
- How many people in your company use our product?
- How do you use the product?
- Which features do you use the most?
- Which features do you like the most?
- Which features do you dislike the most?
- Have you had to use our customer support services?
- How have you found these services?
- What is the biggest advantage our product has offered to your business?
- Were there any surprising advantages of using our product?
- What metrics do you track to do with our product?
- Did you track these metrics before using our product?
- Are you able to share these?
- Is there anyone in your team who particularly uses or likes our product?
- Is there anyone in your team who doesn’t really like our product?
- How did your team implement the product?
- How do you train people to use our product?
- How long does it take someone to get up to speed on our product / service?
- Has our product reduced cost in any way?
- Has our product saved time in any way?
- Has our product driven increased revenue in any way?
- Has our product made your job easier?
Gauge their level of advocacy
- Would you recommend our product to a friend or colleague?
- Have you already recommended our product to anyone?
- Can you think of anyone in your network who could really benefit from using our product?
- Do you have any advice for other companies facing the similar challenges you were?
- Do you think the investment in our product is worthwhile?
Identify potential new opportunities
- Will you expand use of our product into other areas of the business?
Gather important feedback
- Do you have any requests for new features?
- Do you have any feedback on our customer support?
- Do you have any general feedback or advice for our company?
- What are the biggest challenges coming up for your industry?
- Do you think our product will help you overcome those challenges?
- Is there anything we can do to help you tackle those challenges?
- Do you think you will continue to use our product next year?
Gain clarity about the process
- Are you open to working with us on additional marketing collateral?
- I noticed that your company has a presence on [ABC] social networks. Is that correct?
- Would you be willing to share our case study on these networks?
- Who within the business needs to approve this case study before it goes live?
- Is there anything you have told me today that is confidential or shouldn’t be included in the final case study?
- Finally, will you be available over the next few weeks to assist with approvals?
So that’s it – 83 case study interview questions to help you get an amazing case study video. And if you need some help, get in touch with our managing director Jamie – we make loads of case study videos and we’d love to help you with yours.