Our clients - Customer reference programme

"When you first instruct a consultancy, its initial aims are to get to know the messages, products and services, so it can provide an effective PR strategy as quickly as possible. Sx3 was a client of Insight for only two months when it first used the Insight customer reference programme.

The Sx3 sales team had just closed a very lucrative contract overseas. However, the customer still needed to see proof of how Sx3 had given real business benefits to our customers in the housing sector.

Katherine Beswick, Marketing Manager at Sx3 said: "To interview one of our existing customers to get business benefits was the best way to meet the need."

Insight was instructed to interview an Sx3 customer. At that time, Sx3 did not have a style guide, word count, or template of how the story should be written or what should be emphasised in the story. Within six working days, Insight had:

• Written a style guide with wordcount
• Contacted the customer and arranged a telephone interview
• Set questions and interviewed the customer
• Written first draft and sent it to Sx3 for approval
• Once approved, sent it to the customer for final approval
• Obtained supporting photography and customer logo

"Insight had exceeded our expectation and the customer got the information it needed, and all this was done with the minimum effort on Sx3's part, " said Beswick. "We provided Insight with a name and telephone number at the end of the first day and by the following week we had the copy approved and ready. Insight was professional, focussed and provided me with a solution. The copy covered all the key points we wanted to say and told a good story, we were very impressed."

This sales need was not the only use for the copy. Sx3 has since used this piece for sales and media material for exhibition work at events including the Chartered Institute of Housing Annual Conference."

Katherine Beswick
Marketing Manager, Sx3

"Scottish & Newcastle Retail welcomes the opportunity to tell other customers and journalists about our PeopleSoft implementation. We have a successful story to tell and Insight Marketing help us put it across.

Hosting reference site visits to potential PeopleSoft customers has added advantages as new PeopleSoft customers will be implementing the latest releases. Through hosting reference site visits, SNT has built a good network of users who can reciprocate advice when we want to upgrade."

Ian Teague
Scottish & Newcastle Retail

"I had one 30 minute interview, approved 700 words of copy and the next thing I knew I was on the front cover of Information Week."

These days you hear a lot about the importance of client relationship management but very few businesses live up to the fine words. With Insight Marketing, I felt the team really cared about the success of the relationship and the results speak for themselves.

Shaun Dunphy
Ericsson

"As a leading global provider of computing, Internet and intranet solutions, services, communications products and measurement solutions, Hewlett-Packard faces a challenge: staying ahead of the competition, while demonstrating our great track record to the market.

Over the past 18 months, HP has worked with Insight to develop a case study marketing solution for our European enterprise systems business. Now, we simply pass our customer reference accounts to Insight and they do the rest.

Insight staff members interview our customer references, write the complete story, and manage the entire approval process. Two months later, the story is delivered electronically, ready for posting on the web. Over the last year, Insight has managed nearly 200 customer stories for us, transparently and efficiently. The success story campaign provides our European sales force with tools to promote the real business benefits we deliver. It has helped us win more business.

Insight has a rare and powerful mix of initiative, creativity, and marketing expertise that sets them apart from other agencies. Any hi-tech company that has the opportunity to work with them will be impressed."

Diana Jillie
Manager Worldwide Success Story Programs, Hewlett-Packard