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"Is XMPie so critical to customers?"

This is something I am wondering from time to time.

I have been in the "XMPie industry " for almost 20 years. One of my feelings is that, as other companies, XMPie is sometimes a little bit "self-centric", repeatedly chasing partners up (like us), asking if Prospect X eventually took his decision; why Customer Y does not deliver as many omnichannel campaigns as before? Or will Customer Z ever upgrade to the "Pro" version? As if customers were spending all their time, thinking about XMPie, dreaming about XMPie, believing that the Universe revolves around XMPie - whereas many people still believe today that the Universe revolves around the Earth.

Our customers have several software solutions, operate multiple machines from different vendors, pay many employees, fear one or two rapacious tax inspectors; each of these need their attention, often more than XMPie does.

So, is XMPie so critical to customers?? I would say "Maybe not ".

And then... the demonstration comes by itself

Now, let me tell you a short story, that demonstrates the exact opposite of the previous asumption.

At a recent trade show, I met with Mrs. Ayelet S., VP Marketing at XMPie. Ayelet kindly reminded me - as if I had forgotten - that she was still looking for a few more Case Studies, to add to her wall of fame - a Case Study is a document, where a customer introduces itself, explains its market and challenges, and testifies about its (positive) experience with the solution provided by its supplier. The destiny of these documents is to be published on the Internet, or handed out by a Sales person, who wants to use a nice story to persuade a prospective customer that the related solution is good in general, and good for their specific situation in particular.

Even if Ayelet and her team already published dozens of great Case Studies, I agree it's always good to have some more.

I know for ages that most customers in our old Country are not necessarily eager to help their suppliers write such documents; however, I "took my pilgrim stick" (as we say here), and started to call those ones, who - as I know them - managed to reach outstanding results with XMPie - particularly when we (as an XMPie integrator) helped them demonstrate the ability of XMPie software to closely work in conjunction with 3^rd party solutions or services, to generate additional revenues or keep their own customers loyal.

My preferred contact at one of these customers is Mr. Sebastian D. - the IT Manager. His company indeed achieved outstanding results, by integrating StoreFlow - XMPie's eCommerce platform for Web-to-Print - with various eProcurement platforms via PunchOut. I explained Sebastian what I think are the potential advantages for a customer (not only for XMPie, which is obvious) with such a Case Study; particularly: the fact to appear as a recognized specialist in the VDP, Web-to-Print and/or Cross-Media industries - the Case Study then becomes a sort of Letter of Recommendation  from the Editor, that our customer can use when they meet with Corporates - companies that prefer working with experienced and reliable service providers. Sebastian said "It's certainly a good idea; it could be done - as I recently did with my Cloud Infrastructure provider ". "I think that my manager will say Yes", he added.

Only a few days passed, before the manager - Mr. David T. - eventually said (guess what?) "No".

So what?

Did the "Cloud Infrastructure" sales person explain the advantages of his Case Study better than I did? Certainly...

Or, may a Cloud Infrastructure - with all the respect due to this kind of software - be changed into another Cloud Infrastructure, without affecting the company business??

Or... by chance... may XMPie be so critical to this customer's business, that he does not want to publicly confess - including towards his competitors - that he reached outstanding results with it? Well... that's precisely the reason that Sebastian eventually gave.

So... no Case Study?

I will not say that the situation did not hurt. It did, a little...

But eventually, I fully respect our customer's decision to not communicate about XMPie: as far as I am concerned, would my Peugeot dealer call, asking me to publicly testify that the "2008" model I bought to them is the best car for my business, I would certainly co-operate, as I know my competitors would not sell more, should they drive the same "2008" like mine - perhaps I would simply refrain from specifying that I had the engine reprogrammed by a expert, to be able to feed my car with E85 fuel - for as cheap as €0.95 per liter, without any overconsumption - whereas I think that my competitors keep on paying €1.99 for a liter of regular gasoline.

But indeed, would it turn to my golf swing technique, my mountain bike gears or my fishing bait, I would be less talkative. Just as David decided to be about XMPie.

Never mind: we didn't give up, still working on some other interesting Case Studies for Ayelet!

Guillaume Besnier, founder of west-digital.fr

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