O construtor de perguntas para entrevistas de estudo de caso: transforme uma vitória vaga do cliente em uma história publicável
Porque é que este prompt importa
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 que o 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.
A maioria dos estudos de caso B2B fracassa antes mesmo de ser escrita, durante a própria entrevista. Um profissional de marketing consegue 30 minutos com um executivo ocupado do cliente, pergunta «pode me contar sobre sua experiência com a gente?» e recebe exatamente o que essa pergunta merece: uma resposta vaga e educada que não diz nada de fato. Este prompt existe porque um estudo de caso se ganha ou se perde na entrevista, não na redação.
Por que a estrutura prioriza as perguntas difíceis
As perguntas sobre a situação anterior/o problema e as perguntas sobre resultados estão marcadas como obrigatórias, enquanto as perguntas sobre implementação são explicitamente indicadas como opcionais. Isso não é arbitrário — numa entrevista com tempo limitado, as seções que produzem a narrativa real (a dor, o número) importam mais do que o ato intermediário (como foi o processo de implantação). A maioria das pessoas instintivamente pergunta primeiro sobre a implementação, porque parece a pergunta cronologicamente óbvia, e depois fica sem tempo para as duas seções que realmente tornam um estudo de caso convincente.
Por que o prompt proíbe perguntas sobre recursos do produto
Perguntar «o que você gosta no recurso X?» gera respostas que parecem uma lista de recursos, lidas como texto de marketing — porque, basicamente, são isso. Perguntar, em vez disso, sobre o problema e as decisões do cliente faz com que o produto seja mencionado naturalmente, nas próprias palavras do cliente, o que é ao mesmo tempo mais confiável para o leitor e geralmente mais específico do que qualquer coisa que um profissional de marketing teria escrito por conta própria.
Por que duas perguntas são reservadas apenas para citações
A maioria das perguntas deste prompt é construída para extrair informação: números, prazos, critérios de decisão. A seção de perguntas de garimpagem de citações é diferente — ela é construída para extrair uma única frase. «O que o seu chefe disse quando viu os resultados?» não é uma pergunta informativa; é um pedido por um momento humano específico que se transforma na citação de destaque que os editores realmente usam. Separar isso em uma categoria própria evita que seja sufocado pelas perguntas mais analíticas feitas antes na entrevista.
Como usar o resultado
Não leia as perguntas literalmente como um roteiro — use-as como uma lista de verificação para garantir que você cobriu o necessário, e deixe a conversa fluir naturalmente entre elas. A estrutura sugerida para o estudo de caso, ao final, deve ser lida antes da entrevista, não depois: saber de antemão que a resposta da pergunta 3 será sua abertura significa que você estará ouvindo, durante a entrevista, à procura de um incidente específico e utilizável, em vez de tentar reconstruí-lo depois a partir de anotações.