Most Microsoft Partners we come across have more customer success than they can publish, because they can’t get the case study signed off. You can make sign-off much easier by planning for it before the project starts, asking for something smaller when the answer is no, and publishing around the story while you wait.
The question came towards the end of a call with a marketer at a Microsoft ISV. Her company had happy customers, and some had even agreed to a case study. Then the sign off process started. Drafts went round legal and comms teams for weeks. Some customers wouldn’t allow their names on the story. Others wouldn’t allow the company name, or even say where they were based.
“So we have very few case studies,” she told me. “How do we get them?”
What she wanted was the opposite of what her customers would give her: a named person a buyer could look up on LinkedIn and know was real.
We hear a version of this from almost every Partner we work with, MSP or ISV. There’s no magic wand. But you can do a lot to make sign-off easier, and there’s plenty you can publish without waiting for it.
Why case studies get stuck in approval
The person who enjoyed working with you is rarely the person who signs off the case study. Your champion sees a success story. Their legal, brand and comms teams see risk: figures they’d rather keep private, a public endorsement of a supplier, and an admission that something wasn’t working before you arrived.
Large organisations often have policies on endorsing suppliers. Your champion is also busy, so a draft sitting in their inbox loses out to everything else on their list.
Your customer can be delighted with your work and still say no. Your job is to make yes the easier answer.
Plan for case study sign-off before the project starts
The best time to ask for a case study is before you’ve done the work.
If possible, put it in the contract. Many software companies include a customer reference clause in their standard terms, covering things like a logo on their website or a case study after go-live, subject to the customer’s approval. Some customers will strike it out. Many won’t, and you’ve raised it when the customer is keenest to work with you.
Agree at kick-off what will be measured and what can be published. If you know from day one that the customer will let you talk about time saved but not costs, you can gather the right evidence as you go.
Give someone the job. Your project manager or account lead knows when the customer is happiest. Make asking part of their role at go-live or project close, so it doesn’t depend on marketing chasing months later.
Write the case study so it will get approved
Interview the customer, then write the version you know they can sign off. Nobody should be painted in a bad light, and the customer should have the final say on every word.
When we interview customers, we often hear the warts-and-all version. That’s useful, and it goes back to our clients’ delivery or product team. The public story is the one the customer is happy to tell.
Keep it short. If your customer has layers of approval, a top-line story with one strong quote gives legal far less to object to than a 1,500-word feature. They were on an old system, they needed to move, you moved them without disrupting the business, and here’s what’s better now.
Do the writing for them. Send a drafted quote based on what they told you in the interview, so their job is a two-minute edit instead of a blank page. Agree a named approver and a date for comments when you send the draft, and keep their approval in writing.
If the answer is no, ask for something smaller
A no to a full, named case study is rarely a no to everything. Work down the list:
- an anonymised version of the same story
- a short quote with a job title but no name
- their logo on your customer page
- a private reference call with a prospect who’s close to buying
The reference call answers the problem our ISV marketer raised. Buyers who want to check that a real person stands behind the story can speak to one, privately, at the point it matters. Everyone else reads the anonymised version.
A logo needs permission too, so don’t assume it’s the easy option. For some organisations, it’s what the brand team guards most closely.
How to anonymise a case study without making it vague
Anonymous case studies work, provided they stay specific. Swap the name for a description buyers can recognise themselves in: sector, size, region if allowed, and the role of the person you worked with. Keep the numbers, if you have them in the first place. “A 3,000-person engineering firm moving 40,000 documents off an ageing file server” tells a buyer far more than “a leading organisation”.
Ask the customer to approve the anonymised version. It’s a much smaller request, because you’re asking them to confirm you’ve protected them, instead of asking them to endorse you in public. You can also say in the story that it’s been anonymised at the customer’s request. Buyers in this industry understand why.
Anonymous stories also last longer. People change jobs. One of our clients got a named quote signed off for a big project, and then the person quoted left the company. Their name is still on the case study, and anyone who looks them up finds they’ve moved on. A story attributed to a job title doesn’t date in the same way.
Stop waiting and tell the story yourself
If your case study has been through five rounds of comments and still isn’t live, you can start using what you learned now.
Write problem-and-solution blogs on the same topic, aimed at the same sector. Interview your own delivery or product team about the challenges they solved and the outcomes customers saw. Their quotes carry authority because they did the work, and you control the narrative. Lead with what changed for the customer, and keep the features in the background.
If you’ve delivered the same kind of project several times, write about the pattern. “Across our last eight migrations, the biggest delay came from…” gives buyers evidence without any single customer needing to approve it.
If you use your own product or service internally, that’s a story too. We’ve written about becoming customer zero, though we know it won’t suit everyone. Some buyers only trust a story from an outside customer, and that’s a fair view.
Collect customer proof as you go
Some of your best evidence is already sitting in your team’s inboxes. When a customer emails to say a project went well, save it and ask straight away: “Can we quote you on this, with or without your name?” That’s a far easier yes than a case study.
Use the touchpoints you already have. Release notes, quarterly updates, account reviews and support follow-ups are all chances to ask customers how they’re using what you built, and whether they’d say so publicly.
Reviews help with the “is this a real person?” problem from the other side. Reviews on Microsoft Marketplace come from customers who’ve bought the product, even when they’re posted anonymously, and G2 moderates reviews before they go live.
Don’t be tempted to incentivise reviews or quotes
It’s tempting to offer a renewal discount in return for a glowing review. Don’t.
On the Microsoft Store, Microsoft prohibits publishers from paying users for ratings and reviews or trying to manipulate them in any other way. G2 allows some incentives, such as a fixed-value gift card offered to every reviewer in return for an honest review, and labelled as incentivised. But it bans discounts, credits or subscription extensions tied to writing a review.
In the UK, publishing incentivised reviews without disclosing them has been a banned practice under consumer law since April 2025, and the Competition and Markets Authority has opened investigations into fake and misleading reviews.
Many large organisations also have gift and anti-bribery policies, so an offer made in good faith can land badly with procurement.
The safer route is to ask often, in neutral language. Add a short request to your newsletter, release notes and email signatures: if you’re happy with the product, here’s where to leave a review, and we want to hear the bad as well as the good so we can improve it. Then reply to every review, especially the critical ones.
Start with the customer story you already have
Most Partners have more customer success than their website shows. The work is done. What’s missing is the sign-off, and you can plan for that from the start while you keep publishing around the story.
If you have a customer story stuck in approval, or one you’ve never asked for, our case study trial is a low-risk way to see what it could become.
FAQs
Do we need our customer’s permission to publish a case study about them?
Yes. Even an anonymised story can breach a confidentiality clause if the customer recognises themselves, so check your contract before you ask. Then get written approval of the final version, setting out where you’ll publish it.
We signed an NDA with the customer. Does that rule out a case study?
Not necessarily. Read what it covers first. Many NDAs protect the customer’s data and commercial details, not the fact that you worked together. If it does block publication, ask for a short release covering this one story, stating exactly what you’ll publish and where.
What’s in it for the customer?
More than they might think. A case study shows their own customers and board that they’re investing in doing things better, and it puts their team’s work in public. Offer to share it through your channels and theirs, and make your champion the hero of the story. Someone who looks good in front of their own leadership is far more likely to push it through approval.
