I’ve heard talk in some circles that success stories are becoming passé. Sales says they’re “marketing fluff”; reps are less than satisfied with the impact of stories during a sale or in building a case for an up-sell or a resell. And reps are less than satisfied in success stories because buyers don’t quite trust them; how many CIOs eagerly sign on the dotted line after reading a few success stories? Prospects hear the words “success story” these days and wonder how many problematic implementations there are for each ‘success’ shared in a story. And management sees the success story line item as a bottomless pit in which budget is poured without ever a hope of return.

Yet despite all the flak, a look at the data shows, and our enterprise consulting experience confirms, that success stories aren’t going away anytime soon. Why? Because success stories are expected in the technology industry. And because companies have heavily invested in them.

Companies and prospects want success stories—whether they’re good or not.

Through The Phelon Group’s Customer Reference Program Benchmarking Study, we learned that success story writers and agencies comprise the largest dollar-value line item in reference program budgets; this was true in both 2004 and 2005. The Study also showed us that the number one reported measure of a reference program’s success is the number of stories developed—programs are therefore wired to “crank them out.” And in the Customer Perspectives Study, conducted late in 2004, we learned that 59 percent of reference customers are willing to participate in success story development. Even more enlightening, this same Study revealed that success stories influenced the purchasing decisions of 46 percent of technology buyers.

So what’s the problem? Why all the flak? With an informal glance at that data we see that a little more than half of technology buyers expect success stories—whether they’re good or not—as part of the buying and selling process. Some might think that 50 percent expectation is sufficient. But 50 percent of anything means there’s another 50 percent on the other side. How can those charged with success story development increase that percentage? How do we convince the other half—not to mention sales and those holding the purse strings—that the success stories we produce are valuable? How do we fix what’s broken? How do we increase our return on success story investment?

Writers and story vendors are only a small part of the overall problem.

The problem is two-fold; it first has to do with the fact that story consumers expect success stories to accomplish something. Sales expects stories to compel buyers and to overcome buyer objections. PR expects them to demonstrate company momentum and leadership. Other success story consumers, including most prospects and industry analysts, expect stories to deliver the gritty detail on how it was done and how your company uniquely delivers on its promises.

This first fold of the success-story challenge is commonly known; the solution to it lies, yes, in writing, but even more so in customer targeting, recruiting and intelligence practices—another article altogether. Faced with complaints about success stories, those charged with their production often hire and fire writers and firms hoping to find better ones that meets various user expectations. And while the right writer or vendor is indeed part of the solution—in addition to the right targeting, recruiting and intelligence practices—the right writer/vendor is not the end of the story.