The Habits of Highly Effective Reference Programs
Truth. It’s in short supply these days, with sources from politicians to athletes stretching it, hiding it and in some cases absolutely mangling it. As a result, the search for the truth is often a difficult one, particularly for b-to-b buyers looking for honest perspectives about what to expect if they buy a specific product or service. It’s common knowledge that prospects see current customers – especially when they are unscripted and unpaid – as a solid source to rely on during their truth- gathering process. Reference teams, however, often struggle to gain access to their organization’s customers, and then get them to tell their story freely and effectively.
In this post, I will describe three difference makers we see in the customer reference efforts (refers to a set of practices adopted by an organization to enhance customer advocacy around its product or services, e.g., word of mouth) that far outpace those of their peers.
One: Focus and Dedication
Children in schoolrooms more than a century ago read from a primer that included a cautionary statement: “Things done by halves are not done right.” This sentiment applies perfectly to customer reference management, as best-in-class organizations do not treat it as a part-time role. For organizations generating more than $500 million in revenue, we believe a dedicated team is required to deliver high-quality reference results; average organizations tend to tack reference management onto the responsibilities of existing roles such as corporate communications or field marketing. While assigning a specific individual to reference-related tasks may seem sufficient, if it is not a sole focus, superior results will likely never be achieved. This principle extends to the measurement of reference teams as well: If output is not monitored or is held to arbitrary measures of activity, those responsible will routinely fail to deliver because they have other jobs to do.
Two: Division of Labor
Customer reference teams have multiple goals that expand as an organization grows and the demands for information become more complex. First, they must support the sales organization by providing access to customers willing to speak on the company’s behalf. Next, they must document and share the experiences of customers in various ways, including marketing collateral, social media, event participation and much more. Finally, these teams must be equipped to cultivate relationships with customers and with sales in order to better identify willing participants, and develop and manage their participation. While they may be seen as overlapping jobs at the outset, successful reference groups eventually deploy personnel and technology to fulfill different requirements. Automating access to routine requests frees up resources to focus on higher-value activities such as reference recruitment and content development. In contrast, average teams tend to be highly reactive to sales requests and fulfill them in a manual way, meaning they aren’t at all scalable. The more time that is spent in fire-drill mode means it will be challenging to find windows of opportunity to evolve the reference program as a whole.
Three: Direct Access to Customers
Gaining the trust of the organization – particularly sales – is essential to building a proactive, streamlined reference team. Whether or not this trust exists is displayed in the team’s access to customers. Run-of-the-mill teams must ask permission to reach out to a contact; more often than not, they are met with resistance from a sales team fearful of threatening a relationship or jeopardizing a deal in progress. While well-intentioned, over time an abundance of caution leads to a shortage of contacts, which in turn hinders sales’ ability to close other deals. Best-in-class reference teams collaborate with sales not only to identify contacts but to also build relationships on their own. They become a driver of loyalty by protecting customers’ valuable time from overuse and inappropriate application.
A company’s words about itself will never carry the weight of those from a customer, meaning that building a top-notch reference program shouldn’t be looked at as a luxury. With the ways that customer evidence can potentially be used taking on more forms than ever before, marketing has more to manage, and more at risk if it fails. What may seem like an internal inefficiency around helping sales close deals is often emblematic of a much bigger problem: misunderstanding the importance of reputation, and the value of sharing it in a systematic way.
Ally Motz
