Nothing establishes credibility like a great customer success story.
The Need: Tell more people about NSS as an education option.
What started as word-of-mouth among family and friends grew to word-of-mouth on Uber rides and Reddit threads. But I knew we had to amplify the stories further. While NSS had been recording mini-interview podcasts with graduates for about a year, there was an opportunity to share those stories on a wider scale. I started by turning those podcasts into blog posts that highlighted the graduate and their work. The blog posts told the readers what they were doing before NSS and why they decide to pursue tech to help prospective students see themselves at NSS. The story highlighted their capstone projects, how they built it, and what they’re looking for in their first tech job to help employers find their next hire. In addition to helping NSS promote the graduate’s story to prospective students, the blog posts gave the graduate another asset that they could share with their network while on the job search.
The blog posts were successful but we were still missing a very important medium – video. In 2018, I released the first in a series of video success stories. From bakers to Ph.D. candidates, we captured their stories and gave prospective students a glimpse inside the classrooms with graduates who loved their new jobs in tech. Here's one of my favorites with a Web Development graduate.
In 2020, we added a success story to our monthly info sessions by inviting alumni to join us. This provided prospective students the opportunity to ask questions and hear directly from someone who has been through the program. Many of the alumni also offer to connect with attendees after the session. With their genuine responses to questions, the presence of alumni increased the authenticity of the event.
Encouraging customers to leave reviews is always a challenge. It takes time for them to put their thoughts together to write a review and if you’re asking them to leave a review on a website they’re not familiar with, such as a website that ranks coding bootcamps, the challenge is even harder. Rather than spend time chasing reviews, I decided to tap into content that graduates were sharing on LinkedIn and embed their “reviews” on the program pages of NSS’s website. This added another layer of authenticity. Not only can prospective students see the unedited post in full on NSS’s website, they could view it on LinkedIn and connect directly with alumni.
While NSS has not kept a hard tracking number on the impact of customer success stories, our admissions team hears about it in many of their prospective student interviews. Whether it's a similar background, understanding the classroom experience, or seeing what their future could look like, these stories have established NSS’s credibility as an education provider and helped prospective students make the decision to come to NSS. Take a listen to this story on how a podcast from a prior graduate confirmed to a prospective student (now a graduate) that he could do this too!
If you like what you see and want to work together, get in touch!
linkedin.com/in/mandyarola