El generador de preguntas para entrevistas de casos de éxito: convierte un logro vago de un cliente en una historia publicable
Por qué importa este prompt
A B2B case study that only says a customer is “very happy” and cites one vague metric gets skimmed and forgotten; one with a specific incident, a real number, and a human quote gets forwarded internally during a prospect's own buying decision. A badly run 30-minute interview is unrecoverable — there's rarely a second chance to ask a customer executive for their time, so the cost of generic questions isn't a worse case study, it's often no usable case study at all.
Para qué lo usamos
A product marketer at a mid-size SaaS company has a 30-minute call scheduled with a VP of Operations at a customer whose onboarding time reportedly dropped significantly after adopting their tool, and needs to walk into that call with a question list that won't waste the limited time on vague answers.
Prompt
Role: You are a B2B content strategist who has run hundreds of customer case study interviews and knows that generic questions produce generic case studies nobody reads past the headline. Context: My company is [YOUR COMPANY/PRODUCT]. The customer I'm interviewing is [CUSTOMER NAME, INDUSTRY, COMPANY SIZE]. Before working with us, their situation was: [DESCRIBE THE PROBLEM OR PAIN POINT AS YOU UNDERSTAND IT]. The result we believe they got is: [KNOWN METRIC OR OUTCOME, e.g., "cut onboarding time by 40%" — even if approximate]. The interview is scheduled for [LENGTH OF INTERVIEW, e.g., 30 minutes] with [WHO, e.g., "the VP of Operations who championed the purchase"]. Task: Build a structured set of interview questions that will extract a genuinely compelling, specific narrative — not vague praise. The questions should surface concrete numbers, emotional stakes, and quotable moments, organized so I can run the interview in order without losing the thread. Constraints: - No leading questions that invite a one-word "yes, it was great" answer. Every question should require the interviewee to describe something specific. - Include at least 2 questions designed specifically to surface a quotable, human sentence — not a metric, a feeling or moment (e.g., what did their boss say, what did they expect to happen vs. what actually happened). - Include at least 2 questions that probe for the cost of NOT solving the problem — what was it costing them before, in time, money, or stress — since this is usually what makes a case study persuasive to a prospect in the same situation. - Do not ask about product features directly. Ask about their problem and decisions; let the product come up naturally in their answers. - Flag which questions are "if time allows" versus "must ask" given my stated interview length, so I don't run out of time on the essentials. Output format: 1. **Before/Problem Questions** (must-ask) — 3-4 questions establishing the pain, its cost, and why they finally decided to act. 2. **Decision Questions** (must-ask) — 2-3 questions about evaluation and why they chose this path over alternatives (including doing nothing). 3. **Implementation Questions** (if time allows) — 2 questions about what the rollout/adoption was actually like, including any friction. 4. **Results Questions** (must-ask) — 2-3 questions pushing for specific numbers, timeframes, and what changed as a direct result. 5. **Quote-Mining Questions** (must-ask) — 2 questions aimed purely at getting one vivid, human sentence I can pull as a pull-quote. 6. **Suggested Case Study Structure** — a one-paragraph outline of how to sequence the eventual write-up (which answers become which section), so I know what I'm listening for during the interview itself.
Resultado
**Before/Problem Questions (must-ask)** 1. Walk me through a specific week before you started using [product] — what did your team's process actually look like, step by step? 2. What was this problem costing you — not in the abstract, but in hours, missed deadlines, or money you can point to? 3. Was there a specific moment or incident that made leadership finally say "we have to fix this now"? 4. What had you already tried before this, and why didn't it stick?
**Decision Questions (must-ask)** 5. Who else was in the room when you evaluated options, and what was the internal disagreement, if any? 6. What almost made you choose a different path — including doing nothing and living with the problem? 7. What was the one thing that tipped the decision in our favor, even if it seems small?
**Implementation Questions (if time allows)** 8. What was harder than you expected in the first two weeks? 9. Was there a point where you doubted this was going to work? What changed your mind?
**Results Questions (must-ask)** 10. Give me a specific number — time saved, cost avoided, output increased — and the timeframe it happened over. 11. What changed for your team day-to-day that you didn't expect going in? 12. If you had to put a dollar figure on what this is worth to you now, what would it be and how did you arrive at it?
**Quote-Mining Questions (must-ask)** 13. If you had to describe this to a peer at another company in one sentence, what would you say? 14. What did your boss or team say when they saw the results — do you remember their actual words?
**Suggested Case Study Structure** Open the write-up with the answer to question 3 (the specific incident) as a cold open — it's concrete and creates stakes immediately. Follow with questions 1-2 and 8 compressed into a "the situation" section that quantifies the pain without yet naming the solution. Questions 5-7 become "why they chose us," kept short — readers care less about the evaluation process than the outcome. Questions 10-12 are the core "results" section and should lead with the hardest number you got. Close with the answer to question 13 or 14 as a pull-quote, since it's the most human, shareable line in the entire interview.
La mayoría de los casos de éxito B2B fracasan antes de siquiera escribirse, durante la propia entrevista. Un responsable de marketing consigue 30 minutos con un ejecutivo ocupado del cliente, le pregunta «¿puede contarme su experiencia con nosotros?» y recibe exactamente lo que esa pregunta merece: una respuesta vaga y educada que no dice nada en realidad. Este prompt existe porque un caso de éxito se gana o se pierde en la entrevista, no en la redacción posterior.
Por qué la estructura prioriza las preguntas difíciles
Las preguntas sobre la situación previa/el problema y las preguntas sobre resultados están marcadas como obligatorias, mientras que las preguntas sobre la implementación se señalan explícitamente como opcionales. Esto no es arbitrario: en una entrevista con tiempo limitado, las secciones que generan la narrativa real (el dolor, la cifra) importan más que el acto intermedio (cómo fue el despliegue). La mayoría de la gente, por instinto, pregunta primero por la implementación porque parece la pregunta cronológicamente obvia, y luego se queda sin tiempo para las dos secciones que realmente hacen convincente un caso de éxito.
Por qué el prompt prohíbe las preguntas sobre funciones del producto
Preguntar «¿qué le gusta de la función X?» genera respuestas que parecen una lista de funciones, porque básicamente lo son: suenan a texto de marketing. Preguntar en cambio por el problema y las decisiones del cliente hace que el producto se mencione de forma natural, con las propias palabras del cliente, lo cual resulta más creíble para el lector y, por lo general, más específico que cualquier cosa que un responsable de marketing hubiera escrito por su cuenta.
Por qué dos preguntas se reservan exclusivamente para conseguir citas
La mayoría de las preguntas de este prompt están diseñadas para extraer información: cifras, plazos, criterios de decisión. La sección de preguntas para extraer citas es distinta: está pensada para obtener una sola frase. «¿Qué dijo su jefe cuando vio los resultados?» no es una pregunta informativa; es una petición de un momento humano concreto que termina convirtiéndose en la cita destacada que los editores realmente usan. Separar esto en su propia categoría evita que quede eclipsado por las preguntas más analíticas de la primera parte de la entrevista.
Cómo usar el resultado
No leas las preguntas palabra por palabra como un guion; úsalas como lista de verificación para asegurarte de cubrir lo necesario, y deja que la conversación fluya con naturalidad entre ellas. La estructura de caso de éxito sugerida al final está pensada para leerse antes de la entrevista, no después: saber de antemano que la respuesta a la pregunta 3 será tu apertura significa que, durante la entrevista, estarás escuchando para detectar un incidente concreto y utilizable, en lugar de intentar reconstruirlo después a partir de notas.