How to write Mattermost case studies

50% draft

Case studies

This document outlines some of the procedures and materials in developing an effective case study for Mattermost software. This template can be used both to describe deployments of the open source Mattermost Team Edition or commercial deployments with Mattermost Enterprise Edition. We’re delighted to hear everyone’s story and to share it with the community.

What to know about technical case sStudies

Case studies are valuable for any audience, but for technical audiences they provide a great opportunity to show off the potential value of your product to an audience that often bristles at conventional marketing. With that in mind, here are a few things to focus on when creating case studies for developers, security architects, quality engineers, and other technical buyers:

• Context matters. Capturing the broader landscape of our customers’ workflow and tooling, and how Mattermost fits into that landscape is essential.

  Don’t forget time to value. Technical folks know that a new tool isn’t often something that will be ready to use “out of the box,” so case studies can be a good place to show that set up and maintenance won’t be a major issue.

• Get the right people in the room. The value that a CTO gets from a product and the value that a developer gets can be very different conversations. If you’re not speaking with the right person, you might get a lot of vague answers to key questions.

Taken from Ashley’s guide to Writing Case Studies for a Technical Audience for Heavybit.

Case study requirements

Our goal with case studies is to highlight our most successful customers and share how they're benefiting from using Mattermost. Our general requirements:

• Customer has completed a deployment of Mattermost.

• Customer’s use case aligns with a use case we want to emulate.

• Customer has been actively using Mattermost for at least three months.

• Customer has general approval to participate in case studies and other promotion materials, i.e., there are no bans on participation.

Case study process

Mattermost, Inc. is excited to highlight interesting use cases from across our customer base to bring attention to your company and how it’s benefiting from using Mattermost.

The process is approximately as follows:

1. Customer meets the above Case Study Requirements outlined above.

2. Customer case study contact is introduced to a Mattermost case study coordinator over email and completes a questionnaire (below).

3. Mattermost case study coordinator arranges a 30-minute phone or video call with the customer for a discussion around the questionnaire and deployment.

4. One to two weeks later a draft case study is sent to the customer for review and approval (in a shared Google document). Customer is asked to complete reviews within 3-5 business days and is given a target publication date.

5. Mattermost case study coordinator and case study owner take turns to politely follow up with the customer either the day before the customer has stated that the review will be ready, in order to confirm that the review is coming, or approximately every 2 business days after the initial 3-5 day window if an estimate of the draft case study review time is not known.

   • In follow-up emails, it is important to take into consideration what can be done for the customer, rather than what the customer can do for us, e.g. “Circling back to see if there is anything I can do to help the case study review proceed more smoothly? Happy to help, just let me know.”

6. When the customer has completed a review of the draft case study and approved it, the customer feedback is incorporated into the draft blog post in Google Docs.

7. Mattermost case study coordinator prepares for publication:

   • Commissions a banner to be featured in the case study blog post. Please see “Marketing: Graphics” channel for examples on how to commission banners.

   • Creates a draft blog post to promote the case study in WordPress. The draft is then reviewed for formatting, grammar, and other style guidelines.
   • Drafts social media posts to promote the case study.

8. The blog post is then published and may be used in other marketing materials to share the benefits of a Mattermost solution with other potential customers.

   • The case study coordinator follows up with the customer to share a link to the final case study, thank them for participating, and encourage them to share on their company's social channels.

9. Case study owner writes a description of the case study with key details, to be shared with Sales, Customer Success, and other teams.

   • Ex. “We’re excited to introduce our latest case study with Worldline. Worldline first started using Mattermost because they needed a more secure alternative to Slack. Mattermost gives Worldline a central collaboration space that its distributed team uses to find information, organize projects, and speed up development workflows using the Mattermost GitLab plugin.”

Customer questionnaire

The below customer questionnaire template helps us gather information to share with the Mattermost community on your business, your needs, and how Mattermost can help serve your organization.

We’d love your help answering some of these questions, either in email or over a phone call or video conference, to prepare a case study draft for your organization’s review and approval.

Please contact your Mattermost Marketing contact to get started.

Business information

Help us understand your current company’s challenges and goals, and how they fit into the landscape of your industry.

• How long have you been in business?

• How many employees do you have?

• What are some of the objectives of your department at this time?

Need

Please help share some context on the need for a solution.

• What did your processes/workflow look like before using Mattermost?

• What challenges and objectives led you to look for a solution?

• What might have happened if you didn't identify a solution?

• Did you explore other solutions prior to this that didn't work out? If so, what happened?

Decision process

Help us understand how you arrived at a decision to use Mattermost (this will help other potential customers through their own process).

• How did you hear about our product or service?

• Who was involved in the selection process?

• What was most important to you when evaluating your options?

Implementation

We’re very interested in learning about your onboarding procedure.

• How long did it take to get up and running?

• Did that meet your expectations?

• Who was involved in the process?

Solution in action

Please share how the solution is used today.

• Is there a particular aspect of the product or service that you rely on most?

• Who is using the product or service?

• What are some of the top use cases for the solution?

• What other software/tools do you use as part of your workflow? What integrations do you have with Mattermost?

Results

Please share the most impressive measurable outcomes you can think of – the more numbers, the better.

• How is the product or service helping you save time and increase productivity?

• In what ways does that enhance your competitive advantage?

• How much have you increased key metrics, such as reducing response time, time-to-resolution, and reducing time spent in meetings?

If you’re completing the questionnaire by email, please send a copy of the questions completed above to your Mattermost Marketing contact for next steps.

Thank you so much for being part of our community!

Case study interview process

• The call will take place after the customer case study contact has completed the above questionnaire.

• The case study writer should also be on the call.

• At the beginning of the call, the customer is asked if they’re in agreement that the interview be recorded to ensure accurate note-taking. Once agreed, the interview is then recorded via Zoom and the recording is transcribed after the call.

• A draft of the case study, in appropriate format, is sent to the customer for review 1-2 weeks after the call.

Writing guidelines

1. Don't use slang or jargon. Write so that people with English as a second language can understand every sentence.

2. Don't criticize the competition or disparage other products. It’s okay to factually address differences on why Mattermost was selected.

3. Don't mention staff size if less than 250 people.

4. Don't use hyperbole (e.g. “game changing”).

Written case study layout

Follow these steps to write a case study that is clear and concise:

1. Title: Highlight the most compelling use case and/or business benefit from Results section (see step #6 below).

2. Executive Summary:

   1. Open with a sentence on how the organization transformed after using Mattermost.

   2. Include the most important points of the story.

3. Organization (3-5 sentences):

   1. Introduce the customer and their industry, framing their relevance and impact on the world in the first 1 or 2 sentences.

   2. Optionally include a sentence with facts about the company such as location and founding date at the end of this section.

4. Challenges:

   1. One to two sentences on the problem(s) the company faced before using Mattermost. Then elaborate on the consequences of the problem, including quotations as appropriate.

   2. One sentence on the goal they sought to achieve and criteria for a solution (which may introduce new requirements not included in the previous section, e.g. budget, timeline, expanding user base, etc.).

5. Solutions: Describe how Mattermost provided a solution to the customer’s goal and addressed its challenges.

6. Results:

   1. Include 3-5 specific use cases with clear business value (e.g. incident response, new employee Q&A center, etc.).

   2. Include business benefits that do one of three things i) increase revenue, ii) decrease cost, iii) drive efficiency.

   3. Add customer testimonials that show how Mattermost helped achieve the customer’s goals. Include specific examples and quotations.

These case study procedures draw heavily from Hubspot’s How to Write a Case Study article.

For customers: Case study FAQs

How much of a time commitment is participating in a Mattermost case study?

We do our best to make case studies as quick and straightforward as possible. In most cases, you can expect to spend no more than about 2 hours of time over the course of 2-3 weeks on the case study on the following activities:

• Filling out our case study questionnaire.
• 30 min case study interview.

• 1-2 rounds of case study draft review.

If you have limited availability during a case study cycle (preparing for a big release, stakeholders on vacation, etc) please let us know and we’ll do our best to accommodate your schedule or revise our process.

Will I have a chance to review the case study before it goes live?

Yes! The goal of our case studies is to present both Mattermost and our users in the best possible light. We will give your team an opportunity to review, edit, and approve the case study before it's shared publicly. Please share with your legal team, marketing team, or any other stakeholders who will need to review it during this time.

What do you do with case studies?

Case studies are added to our website, and shared on the Mattermost blog. We promote case studies in our email newsletter, Mattermost community, and on our social media channels.

Our Sales and Customer Success teams use case studies during conversations with other users as examples of the potential of the Mattermost platform.

Where can I find the case study after it goes live?

We’ll send you a link to the live version, but you can find all of our case studies at https://mattermost.com/customers/.

What happens to the case study if we stop using Mattermost?

Please let your CSM know if you'd like us to remove your case study. Note that in some cases we may republish a completely anonymized version of the case study.

I really love using Mattermost! Are there other customer programs I can participate in?

We love featuring our users as guest contributors on our blog and as collaborators on webinars. If you’re interested in sharing more of your experience with our community, please let us know!