July 2, 2009
I was invited to be a guest speaker with Eric Larson on the Customer Reference Knowledge Sharing Network Blog Talk Radio on the topic of “Internal Marketing” and it’s relevance to an effective customer reference program. You can check out the 15 minute podcast segment here.
In my humble opinion, internal marketing is one of the most important keys to the success of a customer reference program. Some of the biggest challenges related to customer reference management, including influencing behavior across the company, are eased by having broad support. However, many program owners don’t position themselves or their efforts sufficiently. As a result, their efforts are rebuffed and relegated to secondary status. By contrast, companies that execute with internal marketing in mind are often able to use the cross functional visibility of their customer reference program to elevate their program to strategic importance within their company.
So how does one do internal marketing? Well, it’s not so different from any other type of marketing. You define a message and use various communication channels to reach your audience.
Branding
One of the most important elements is naming your program. Doing so gives it a brand and a way for others to describe it internally and to customers where appropriate. As you think further about messaging, consider ways to emphasize the importance. Use language that suggests the positive impact customer references have on your business and the importance of the customers that participate. Give your program a logo and imagery that evokes it’s personality appropriately.
Communication Channels
Look for opportunities to use existing communication vehicles to highlight the program, such as an internal newsletter or an employee portal. If your company has brown bag lunch sessions, use them to get your messages across. Internal company events or quarterly kick-offs can be good times share your message as well.
Messages
Your goal with internal marketing is to establish and maintain awareness of your program, have it assigned the appropriate credibility, and drive the behaviors you need to be successful. While there are a variety of methods you can apply, the most effective is creating references for the effectiveness of customer references. This means identifying stakeholders that have achieved positive results and helping share their message. Even a newly minted program can do this, by finding a few deals in which the sales rep can be encouraged to highlight the importance of an existing customer in the deal.
There are a variety of tactics for internal marketing, but the bottom line is just to get started. Internal marketing for your customer reference program is an important and often overlooked technique for success. If you haven’t checked out the CRKSN podcast, please do. We are considering doing a more comprehensive webinar on the topic. Feel free to let us know your thoughts about the topic at events@boulderlogic.com
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Customer References, Program Tips | Tagged: CRKSN, customer reference management, internal marketing | 
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Posted by Joshua Horwitz
June 24, 2009
Recently I had a chance to sit down and chat with one of our favorite clients, Abby Atkinson. Atkinson is Senior Director at Infor, where she pioneered the Infor Ambassador Reference Program. We spoke about the many things that have made the Infor program unique and such a success.
One of the main things that makes their program different is that they use a “butler service”, where the program is managed by a centralized reference department, rather than the more typical self service mode. This has allowed for better documentation and tighter control over reference usage.
Atkinson said that recently due to the tougher economy, her budget for the reference program was threatened of being cut. She had to defend the value of the program in order to keep it staffed and active. Using key metrics and simple figures, Atkinson was easily able to determine the savings Infor was achieving with the program as well as the negative impact they would feel without it. By the time she was finished Atkinson had increased her budget by 60%.
Click here to read the whole story.
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Customer References | Tagged: Case Study, customer reference management, Customer References, Infor | 
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Posted by Joshua Horwitz
June 18, 2009
Looking for Qualified Customer References to add credibility to your PR efforts?
Boulder Logic and Projectline would like to invite you to join us for our upcoming webinar
Event Title: Helping PR Succeed With Customer References
Date: July 9 at 11 a.m. PST
PR is critical to building credibility and raising awareness around your products, services and technology. Engaging customer references from the onset helps PR become even more compelling. Yet, many organizations do not have a formal intersection in place between enterprise customer reference management and the public relations functions.
This webinar will focus on the importance of customer referencing and how it positively affects the Public Relations discipline. We’ll offer tips on how to improve the connection between customer references and Public Relations and provide recommendations for maximizing customer reference potential in PR.
Some topics we will discuss:
- How PR/AR typically interact with customer references today.
- The challenges to PR/AR and the entire organization with this silo approach.
- The benefits of an integrated program to the entire organization.
- The business justification for this approach.
- The implications of increased business focus on social marketing.
When: Thursday, July 9
Time: 11 a.m. PST
Register at: https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/442075658
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Customer References, What's happening | Tagged: customer reference management, PR, webinar | 
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Posted by Joshua Horwitz
June 16, 2009
If you are a reference professional in the New England area, you may want to attend the next meeting of the Boston Area Reference Professionals Group, organized by our friend Kara Manfredi of Deltek.
The next Boston area reference meeting is scheduled for August 14th from 9:30-12:30. Elizabeth McCann from Intuit has offered to host the next meeting in Waltham, MA. Dan Raun from DS will be joining the meeting to discuss the online community he is in the process of developing in partnership with Beeline Labs, targeting the aerospace and defense industry. Beeline Labs will also be joining Dan in the discussion. We are hoping to have a representative from SAP join our discussions of how they are using online community with their reference customers. If you are interested in attending this meeting please e-mail Kara Manfredi at karamanfredi@deltek.com or at 617-528-2601. Also, if you are not located in the MA area, but would still like to join the Boston user group please contact Kara. Kara’s group has members that dial in from NY, RI, CT, and SC.
Leave a Comment » | Customer References, What's happening | Tagged: customer reference management, Reference Program, Customer References, Deltek | Permalink
Posted by Joshua Horwitz
June 8, 2009
Recently I had the chance to talk with Marketing Sherpa about how Boulder Logic approaches customer interviews. We talked about an alternative approach to the classic customer case study (situation, challenge, solution, benefits). Our approach uses a recorded Q&A format that makes it easier to get customers to discuss their experiences. Because the interview is published verbatim the approval process is faster and the end result is a great read.
The full article will be available until June 11, 2009. Check it out
2 Comments | Customer References, Program Tips | Tagged: customer marketing, Case Study, customer interviews | Permalink
Posted by Joshua Horwitz
May 21, 2009
Today’s post is by Barbara Krasner, a senior marketing professional with an extensive customer marketing background. She writes about optimizing case studies, success stories and other customer marketing content for search engines. Enjoy…
If you have case studies or success stories on the web, particularly in text form, are you thinking about all the ways readers can find them?
Putting active thought into writing for search engines can dramatically add to the value of what you are writing by increasing visibility. You don’t have to be an expert in meta titles, meta descriptions, and meta keywords to maximize search engine optimization (SEO) value. Some very simple tips can go a long way towards helping reference management professionals take advantage of SEO.
Here are some ways to get started:
- How you would search—Think about how you, as a representative of the information-seeking population, might search. Make a list of words you would use. Then apply them to your narrative.
- Case study titles—Use a combination of geography, subject, and firm name. Example: “Atlanta Georgia Retail Store Gains $1.3 Million in Benefit with Software Security Solution.”
- Sub-heads—These are really important for SEO and, from my observation, not well used in case studies. Instead of inserting merely Challenge, Solution, and Benefit, make subtitles meaty and meaningful. Example: “Stolen merchandise and profits left clothing retailer” instead of “Challenge.”
- Alternative phrasing—Using alternative word choices increases SEO value. For example, SEO value increases using “retailer” in addition to “retail store.” Try “GA” in addition to “Georgia.” Insert Atlanta metro area in addition to Atlanta. Mention the county and surrounding county names.
- Sometimes being succinct will hurt you—As efficient marketers and writers, we might try to be as brief as possible. In the introductory paragraph above, I used both “case studies” and “success stories.” That was intentional to increase the marketing value of this blog entry. If you have phrases like “pre- and post-installation,” write out “pre-installation and post-installation.” That will increase SEO value.
Make every word in your case study count and work for you and your client. Increase exposure and clicks by maximizing your document’s SEO value. Feel free to contact me with questions.
Barbara Krasner
barbarakrasner@att.net
1 Comment | Customer References, Program Tips | Tagged: Case Study, SEO, success story | Permalink
Posted by Joshua Horwitz
May 15, 2009
If you didn’t get to attend our live webinar this week, here is a link to a recorded archive: A Marketing Operations Approach to Customer Reference Management. We were having fun and time got away from us. Since we didn’t get to all the great questions we received, we decided to post the Q&A below. Enjoy!
Q: What could be customer incentives to participate in the program?
A: There is a lot of debate on this topic and there was an earlier post on points that you might find interesting. Generally the incentive for customers comes from their appreciation for a successful partnership with you as a vendor or service provider. A desire to see their success communicated externally is a personal motivator. An effective program typically has elements in place to reinforce these factors and augment them with other benefits. Benefits that have a direct monetary value risk the perceived integrity of the testimonial and open legal and accounting issues. Some of the most successful programs tap into the customer’s relationship with your business and products by offering VIP input to product roadmap and access to executives.
Q: Do you have any other numbers to elaborate on the impact of references on sales/revenue?
A: One of the really nice things about customer reference management is that it is so closely tied to revenue. One way this is done is linking specific sales opportunities to deals that were impacted by customer references. There have been a few folks that have published numbers related to their results, including a nice write up by Abby Atkinson of Infor. We will be publishing a recording from another webinar shortly that walks through the calculations at a very detailed level. Stay tuned!
Q: We do have a reference program and we are moving into an indirect channel and it’s proving to be difficult. How does one engage the indirect channel more?
A: Organizations with an indirect selling model do have additional challenges because the customer relationship is typically owned entirely by the partner. In these cases, it is very important to have an executive sponsor that promotes the importance of the initiative directly and through the executive responsible for the channel relationships. From a marketing perspective, you should apply internal marketing techniques to bring visibility to partners that do engage an awareness to all. If possible, secure the opportunity for your channel to apply co-marketing dollars to their own customer reference efforts. After all, they are both the producers and consumers of an important resource.
Q: Any tips on how to get seasoned sales executives, who may be used to a culture of guarding their reference customers and “keeping them in their back pocket,” to adopt a sales reference tool/process and be active contributors? How do new customer reference programs build trust?
A: Your question acknowledges that it is all about a trust relationship, which is great. Trust is achieved in steps where expectations are set and consistently met. Acknowledge and respect the relationships that exist. Break down their concerns about overuse and the lack of other available references by sharing how your program will work. Leverage your executive sponsor and ensure that sales management is involved so they hear that the initiative is being supported. And when you see success, promote it and whoever made it happen!
Q: What kind of applications can be used for customer reference management?
A: It isn’t uncommon to start with using Excel, however the challenges of sharing access, defining workflow , data quality, and tracking details for reporting make this a challenge. Many organizations ask their IT department to build something; however there are specialized tools for managing an enterprise customer reference program available as a stand-alone or integrated with your CRM system.
Q: How do you get marketing & sales execs to understand reference management (the need, the processes, the business case, best practices, etc.) when you’re given 3 minutes to present AND you’re also trying to describe the status quo of our particular situation internally to get them to fully understand the problem? They say “we need more references” but won’t stand still long enough to understand how else it can be done…
A: Wow! That doesn’t sound very fun, but your situation isn’t actually so uncommon. Customer reference management is surprisingly difficult and organizations fail to realize that the solution and the responsibilities need to cross groups. I’d set aside the 3 minute presentation until you’ve secured an executive sponsor that will help. If that isn’t easily obtained, follow the advice of one of our clients: “My advice to organizations considering managed reference programs is to rally their salespeople around the idea first. Having your sales team champion the need for a managed reference program can make the difference between getting executive buy-in and funding or not. This isn’t easy and requires good planning and communication but when you can get sales to say, ‘I can generate more business with references’, somebody high up in the marketing organization is going to take notice and back the venture.”
Q: To your point about skill sets: I have the process & operational mindset — the marketing execs holding the money do not. :-( How can I break through that?
A: If your executive audience doesn’t think with an operational mindset, I wouldn’t advise trying to convert them to a different way of thinking. Know your audience. Keep your business justification focused on the business benefits, high-level execution plan and your resource requirements. If there isn’t a real process today, it shouldn’t be too hard to highlight lost opportunity or business problems. If they are more apt to listen to sales reps, follow the guidance from the answer above and solicit input to sales about how the topic impacts their ability to generate new business.\
Q: How often do you see customer mgmt programs successfully integrated with existing CRM solutions?
A: The successful integration between Customer Reference Management with an existing CRM solution is a pretty consistent part of the customer reference program vision. Obstacles typically include other IT priorities, budget and limited adoption of the existing CRM. To answer your question, we see successful integration about fifty percent of the time.
Q: Good idea of integrating these very interesting topic(s)! Nice slides ;-)
A: Thanks for the positive feedback. Marketing operations fits pretty easily with customer reference management.
Q: Is it important to monitor the use of references by the sales force [to prevent them from] using a reference too early in the process?
A: Good question. I think it is very important to understand the different phases of the sales process and consider how some form of customer testimonial should be applied in each. By presenting this back to the sales team, they’ll be more inclined to use what is appropriate for each phase.
Q: Where are/were the customer references for Boulder Logic in this presentation?
A: Ha! Who planted this question? Seriously, we decided to avoid too much self promotion. Here is a page with a few of Boulder Logic’s client references.
Q: What are some successful strategies for motivating hesitant customers to participate as a customer reference?
A: We talked a bit earlier about what incents a customer to participate as a reference. When customers are hesitant, it may be because they don’t understand these benefits, don’t believe them to be relevant or have external pressures affecting them. Your effort to overcome these should be based on the importance of their participation, but some of the approaches would be: 1) working through individuals that have the closest relationship, 2) showing them others like them that have participated, 3) starting with something small like providing a quote, or 4) redefining how they participate, such as doing an anonymous case study.
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Leave a Comment » | Customer References | Tagged: Customer References, incentives, webinar | Permalink
Posted by Joshua Horwitz
May 14, 2009
We all know that the birth of social media has given us the ability to create and maintain personal and professional connections like never before. We want to invite you to check out some of the people we are connecting with on sites such as Linkedin and Facebook.
The Customer Reference Knowlege Sharing Network (CRKSN) is a group of marketing professionals who come together on Linkedin to share their expertise in customer reference, customer testimonials, and customer evidence. This noncompetitive group is available for questions, ideas, and general networking purposes. You can also find CRKSN on Facebook and Twitter.
Casey Hibbard, Principal at Compelling Cases, Inc. heads up Success-Story Marketing on Linkedin. It is another noncompetitve group of professionals who work in sales and marketing and know that the testimonial of a happy customer is one of the most powerful tools you may have. This group exchanges ideas on how to write, manage and use case studies and success stories to their fullest potential.
Get to know us better by getting to know our friends and collegues.
Leave a Comment » | Customer References | Tagged: Case Study, customer reference management, Customer References, marketing, Reference Program | Permalink
Posted by Joshua Horwitz
May 7, 2009
We have a guest post today from Katy Boos of Big Sky Communications. She writes about using social media for your customer programs. It’s a topic we recommend customer reference managers and executives have in their plans, either originating initiatives from their customer reference program or leveraging what has been set up by other groups within their company. Enjoy…
At the recent Customer Reference Forum in Berkeley, CA, the most buzzed-about topic was social media. Customer reference professionals are asking: what role can/should social media play in customer programs? What types of social media should I integrate into my customer program? Should we have a Facebook page? Should we be on Twitter? What about YouTube videos?
At the beginning of 2009, Forrester conducted a research study which showed that 95% of technology decision makers surveyed were using some sort of social media. Given that statistic, customer reference managers need to find smart ways to leverage customers in social media.
Here are some examples of companies I think are doing a great job using social media for customer references:
- Communities: It’s hard to imagine a company doing more than Intel from a communities perspective. Check out all they offer from blogs, written and audio discussions, wikis, photos and more. Also look at Dell’s Ideastorm where customers submit ideas and the community votes on them. Dell features the current stats on the main page. At the time of this writing, the Dell Community had contributed 11,553 ideas, posted 85,599 comments and Dell had implemented 317 ideas. Wow – that shows the power of customer input!
- YouTube: Companies are finding new outlets for videos – both professionally produced or more casual footage. Wyse Technology has its own YouTube channel where its customer videos have attracted a few thousand viewers within just a few months of going live.
- Twitter: Red Hat (@redhatnews) is effectively using Twitter to update its followers (almost 1,500 at the time of this writing) about its news, including its latest customer successes. According to Forrester Research, Twitter is “uniquely valuable to marketers because it’s more immediate and interactive than any other digital channel.” In another example, Dell noticed customers complaining on Twitter that the apostrophe and return keys were too close together on the Dell Mini 9 laptop. So Dell fixed the problem on the Dell Mini 10.
- Facebook: Aspect Software’s Customer Reference Program Facebook page describes itself as “a forum for Aspect Software customer reference program members to network, talk about industry trends, receive updates on industry awards, speaking opportunities and many other reference opportunities.” The page invites feedback from the group on things like the new company website, offers free passes to company events, notifies the group of awards opportunities, and posts pictures from customer events.
One thing that’s clear: There is not one approach to social media that works for every company. It really depends on you, your company and where your audiences are online. Here’s how I think of it: Social media is a toolset that reference professionals need to understand and be able to engage in. It can be incorporated across all types of communications – from PR to advertising, marketing to sales and up to the executive suite. Customer reference professionals need to look at where their customers are online and then engage with them there.
Katy Boos, Partner, Big Sky Communications
1 Comment | Customer References | Tagged: Customer References, Reference Program, social media | Permalink
Posted by Joshua Horwitz
April 28, 2009
We have an upcoming Webinar that we are excited to tell you about.
It’s called, A Marketing Operations Approach to Customer Reference Management and it’s going to be live on May 12 at 1PM MDT. [If you missed it, here is the recording]
It is a collaboration with Marketing Operations Partners CEO and Founder, Gary Katz . We will be discussing how to take a more formal, operations centric approach to customer reference management.
The goal is to help marketing executives boost sales and marketing results on a measurable and repeatable basis using customer reference activities.
Here are some of the learning points for attendees:
- Economic relevance of customer reference management
- Explanations of how to apply an operational approach to a customer reference process
- Considerations before introducing the new practices
We think marketing executives will find the information in this 30 minute web event quite valuable. Please join us!
When: Tuesday, May 12
Time: 1:00 – 1:30 PM MDT
[If you missed it, here is the recording]
Leave a Comment » | Customer References | Tagged: Customer References, marketing, Marketing Operations, Reference Program | Permalink
Posted by Joshua Horwitz
April 20, 2009
I was recently discussing with a client the idea of creating strategic marketing plans with selected customers. Instead of asking an individual person for help as a customer reference, this is going big and folding it into the marketing strategies of both companies.
The approach involves gathering key stakeholders from multiple marketing disciplines to create an integrated plan and laying out a proposal that adds value to the brands of both companies.
Participants in the initiative would generally include PR, Product Marketing, Product Management, Advertising, and other Marketing Communications types.
Clients presented with this proposal should be carefully chosen based on timing, brand fit, and access to key executives.
The proposal should lay out all the activities at once, presenting it in a manner that highlights the mutual benefits to the brands of both companies. Don’t make it an all or nothing proposition. For best results, encourage participants to select those activities that match their goals. Refine the proposal together.
Yes, companies that have significant brand equity already may be able to apply more leverage to the discussion. However, the point of this approach is to elevate the discussion from an ad hoc request to one with mutual benefit. Emphasize the investment your company is willing to make into the effort and then be prepared to discuss the anticipated results of the campaign elements.
In an economic environment where marketing budgets are being reduced, the ability to show your customers a way to increase their brand visibility with minimal investment on their part becomes a more interesting proposition.
They key to this approach is to take the reference request from one of “a favor” to a more formal marketing effort. To do this, it must include the right stakeholders and be treated as such.
Use strategic marketing plans to open up marketing opportunities that might otherwise have been missed.
1 Comment | Customer References, Program Tips | Tagged: customer reference management, strategic plan, customer marketing | Permalink
Posted by Joshua Horwitz
April 20, 2009
Today, I came across this Wikipedia entry for Savvis that included a nice illustration of a point we made about the value of a single customer reference.
In the company history section, it included the following note about how their first customer reference was instrumental to building the business.
“By leveraging the Apple Computer customer reference and testimonials, Savvis was able to close additional large contracts with other industry providers.
Let it be good encouragement for reference advocates out there!
Leave a Comment » | Customer References | Tagged: ROI | Permalink
Posted by Joshua Horwitz
April 14, 2009
Boulder Logic and customer Deltek received some nice press this week on TMCnet’s Contact Center Solutions news site.
TMCnet Contributing Editor, Susan J. Campbell writes “Both Deltek and Boulder Logic have done well to recognize the functionality that works to streamline customer interactions and the development of leads to advance the efforts of any customer-focused company. In doing so, Boulder Logic creates greater demand for its solutions and Deltek is better able to serve its customer base.”
To read more of Susan’s comments and analysis on the relationship check out the entire story here.
Leave a Comment » | Customer References, Reactions | Tagged: Customers, Deltek | Permalink
Posted by Joshua Horwitz
April 9, 2009
Today we have a guest post from Gary Katz on his experience applying a formal Marketing Operations model to customer reference management. Enjoy…
About five years ago, I walked into Shoreline Communications as the new director of communications and corporate marketing. After completing my first objective – helping to re-brand the enterprise phone company from Shoreline to ShoreTel – I realized I had a significant challenge ahead:
- ShoreTel had great customer loyalty, which needed to be leveraged as a significant competitive advantage in the market.
- Our marketing programs depended heavily on great customer references – webinars, seminars, case studies, media relations, analyst relations, speaking engagements.
- The company’s sales channel model provided neither the structure nor motivation for Sales to collect timely customer reference data. Once the deal was done, the heavily lifting was passed to a channel partner and Sales was on to something else.
- The same customer references were being burned out, used over-and-over again. Why? Because with more than 1200 customers and more than 150 channel partners at the time, no one wanted to assume responsibility for qualifying and managing these customer references.
- My success was directly related to being able to tap into this rich pool of customer references.
At that time, I didn’t know about Boulder Logic. I didn’t even know what Marketing Operations was. I just knew I wasn’t getting anywhere trying to qualify these references on an ad hoc basis.
So I worked with a consultant to design a customer reference process aimed at developing a robust and renewable pipeline of customer references – just like a sales pipeline. Specifically:
- ShoreTel’s customer database was categorized, continuously updated and mined for strong reference candidates.
- All references were qualified for use in marketing and sales efforts
- Qualified references were matched to appropriate marketing, public relations or sales opportunities
- Select customer references were converted into case studies or e-newsletter articles, or used in webinars, editorial calendar, article, analyst research or speaking engagement opportunities.
- We began formally tracking all active references, including customer contact info, channel partner info, reference type, usage log and color-coded status information.
Since that time, ShoreTel’s customer reference program has grown from about 20 qualified references to more than 1000. The program generates approximately 25 new case-study candidates every quarter. The public relations team has a ready supply of credible references to present to editors and analysts as publicity opportunities arise or are uncovered.
But most importantly, within months of rolling out the program, the major benefactor and requester shifted from Marketing to Sales. Today, ShoreTel Sales relies on this program to identify references that help it win strategic deals in new vertical markets and new geographic territories.
And who do you think helps them find the best matches for their requests? The same consultant I hired to implement the program one day a week back in 2004! Dick has out-survived four of my successors and his value (and workload) is greater than ever, even in a miserable economy.
So let’s get with it, people! Odds are, your customer reference effort is suboptimal. Bringing operational discipline to your customer references is not only a Marketing Operations best practice, it’s a proven way to increase your value and contribution to your company’s success.
Today, you have great tools like Boulder Logic to make the customer reference process even more effective.
Think about it. What other marketing program can simultaneously influence your company’s customer lifetime value, ensure that valuable Voice of the Customer insight is collected and utilized in marketing, potentially transform your customers’ technologists into industry rock stars, and help Marketing become Sales’ best friend by increasing the velocity of the sales pipeline?
With a heightened emphasis on Marketing optimization and ROI, today you can’t afford to miss this golden opportunity.
Gary Katz, CEO, Marketing Operations Partners
Leave a Comment » | Customer References | Tagged: Case Study, Customer References, Marketing Operations | Permalink
Posted by Joshua Horwitz
March 5, 2009
Recently, a customer posed these questions:
“What is the value of a single reference? What is the dollar value of having one customer success story that can be used internally and externally?”
While I don’t have a simple answer to these questions, we thought it was a good discussion topic.
The answers vary considerably based on the situation. Thinking about it broadly, I am quite certain companies have been built from just one good reference. From that first success, they are able to close the next deal and the cycle continues. This fits the classic “technology adoption life cycle” in which selling to one paves the way to sell to others. The same holds true in penetrating a new industry. A single sale can be the key to opening a new market. With this mindset, the value of a reference could be nearly equal to the value of the company or marketplace. The point here is not to underestimate the impact.
At the other end of the spectrum, there are references that may be worth absolutely nothing. If the customer’s story doesn’t appropriately demonstrate the value of the company’s solution, it may not have any impact. And even a high impact story can have no value if it isn’t given suitable visibility to reach an audience. If it doesn’t get used, then it may as well not exist. You could argue that the ROI of the references in these situations is actually negative because it would have taken time and effort on the part of the customer and marketing department. Another negative value scenario is one in which a less than ideal reference gets used and creates the wrong result. We’ve seen this happen in sales cycles where there is such a rush to answer a request from a prospect or an analyst that the customer can’t speak positively or appropriately and the reference ends up destroying what could have been a sale. There is a big difference between having a reference and managing customer references well.
Now, assuming that a strong customer reference management program exists and is delivering good quality products, then we can create a formula that shows the value of a positive reference. This equation is directly based on the value of the deal that it is helping to create. If a deal is worth A to your company and you can attribute the likelihood of getting that deal to be increased by B% by using the reference, then the value of the reference is A x B x C where C is the number of deals in which the reference is used. Let’s look at an example.
A. Revenue from a new sale = $100k
This is the average deal size and would be pretty easy to find out, but is of course specific to the individual company.
B. Increased likelihood of sale with reference = 3%
This is actually not to hard to find out by simply asking the sales team in a survey. When a reference is involved in an sales opportunity, does it make a difference? Err on the side of being conservative.
C. Number of sales per year the reference is involved = 4
This is also relatively easy to find out. It is just how many deals this customer reference will be involved in.
Given the assumptions above, let’s complete the formula: A x B x C = $100k x 3% x 4 time = $12,000 per year.
So, while there are several variables that factor into the true value of a reference, we can get a good ballpark using basic assumptions and a formula like we’ve shown.
One final point that I would like to emphasize in closing is the role that the overall customer reference process or program plays in maximizing this value. If a company doesn’t have a process in place it runs the risk of making inefficient requests, waiting too long to deliver, or even bombarding its customers with uncoordinated and multiple requests for the same customer. This can quickly lead to customers becoming unwilling to continue to participate. Since the number of times a single reference is used drives the value equation above, this destroys potential value. Even worse, this type of behavior can have long term damaging effects on the relationship with that customer.
Having a consistent program in place helps ensure that customers have a positive experience and that the value of each customer reference is maximized.
1 Comment | Customer References | Tagged: Customer References, ROI | Permalink
Posted by Joshua Horwitz
February 10, 2009
Our customer RightNow Technologies agreed to share some nice words about our microsite publishing module, Boulder Logic Published Pages™. This is the module that allows sales reps to pick out content from the customer reference database and publish it on private web pages for their prospects. Elizabeth, their customer reference program manager out of Bozeman, writes…
“…The visibility is what makes it truly unique and valuable … We can see reports on how often the site is viewed and more specifically what they viewed. The customization helps us to create an excellent impression with our prospects.”
You can see the full press release here. And you can read more about microsite publishing from when we previously posted about it in this blog.
Leave a Comment » | Customer References, What's happening | Tagged: microsite, RightNow | Permalink
Posted by Joshua Horwitz
February 5, 2009
Our friend, Barb Krasner, just posted to her new Reference Management Insider blog with the idea of using customer reference programs to boost employee morale. I say… ABSOLUTELY!
Let me hit a few quick reasons why making an active point of sharing the positive stories from your customers internally is the right thing to do. Firstly, it is highly motivating for employees to hear about the success their business brings to clients. Everyone wants to know that their company is providing value. Sometimes when you’re deep in the day-to-day of your job, it’s hard to see that value being generated by the business overall. Hearing from customers about their success is rewarding. Secondly, it’s a great way to create senior level support for your program. I’m a big fan of bringing success stories directly to senior executives to disseminate. Let them take some ownership and credit, and as a result you’ve earned an advocate for your reference program. Thirdly, there is an opportunity to drive increased participation from sales. By nature sales folk are competitive. If you can get your executive to give a shout out to the sales rep that closed the deal behind the success story, other sales reps tend to get the message that contributing their success stories to your program is something they should be doing too. Don’t forget to enourage your executives to mention your program and say how salespeople can contribute.
One of the most important, but most often overlooked, areas of customer reference management is internal marketing. Use it to boost morale, create broad support and drive positive behavior. Communicating customer references internally is a great way to build a virtuous cycle within your organization!
Leave a Comment » | Customer References, Program Tips, Reactions | Tagged: internal marketing | Permalink
Posted by Joshua Horwitz
January 27, 2009
When it comes to reference programs, points often make people think of frequent flyer type rewards for participating in customer reference activities. If your vision stops there, you may be missing ways that tracking points can be used to drive a really effective customer reference program. Here’s a brief rundown of three models we’ve used with clients in the past.
1. Simple Ranking
By assigning a relative weight to different reference activities (often based on effort required from the customer) it becomes easy to track not only which customers have participated more times in reference activities, but those who have extended themselves the most. This approach doesn’t imply communicating anything to the customer, but means being able to answer the question of which customers are the most valuable references.
Here are sample activities and how you might allocate points to each:
- Phone call = 50 points
- Press release = 100 points
- Case study = 250 points
- Onsite visit = 500 points
After tracking different customer’s participation over time, you might have a points balance for each. By sorting from high to low, you can see at a glance which customer has contributed the most.
- Customer D has reached 1200 points
- Customer C has reached 800 points
- Customer B has reached 350 points
- Customer E has reached 200 points
- Customer A has reached 0 points
2. Status Levels
The next approach involves creating different program tiers or levels with different privileges and treatment accordingly. Each tier would be established based on reaching some point total in a given time period. Here is an example of sample tiers. It’s not really necessary to share the details of these tiers or even their current level with the customer directly. Levels provide a way to segment or group your customers.
- Tier 1 = 1,000+
- Tier 2 = 250 to 1,000
- Tier 3 = 0 to 250
Here is how those customers would fall into tiers:
- Tier 1: Customer D
- Tier 2: Customer C & Customer B
- Tier 3: Customer E & Customer A
3. Transaction
This is the formal rewards program that first comes to mind. We could go into a discussion of the pros and cons of a formal transaction model, but many companies have set up successful transactional rewards programs. The key point to mention here is that the benefits you offer are often not necessarily marketing schwag, product discounts or conference tickets. In surveys asking customers from different businesses what they’d like most to receive, the answers are often more related to things that further build the relationship, like access to executives or input to product management.
Conclusion
While each organization is different, our most commonly recommended approach is to use points to create status levels and show your appreciation to your customers accordingly. If you can then combine this with another angle like the brand recognition of the customer, you can have a pretty solid picture of your true VIPs and where additional evangelism of your reference program is warranted.
If your customer reference program has only a few dozen participants, you may not need anything formal to know the contribution your customers are making. As your program grows, having an objective measurement and a fully automated way to track becomes more critical.
1 Comment | Customer References, Program Tips, Reactions | Tagged: customer reference management, points, rewards | Permalink
Posted by Joshua Horwitz
January 19, 2009
I noticed this post on Crunch Gear about Belkin’s attempt to pay for good reviews and thought it should serve as fair warning to folks in the customer marketing community about the danger of faking it.
I am sure the negative PR on this outweighs anything anyone was hoping to achieve when this plan was concocted. I do hope this was an rogue, isolated incident and there not a larger nefarious plot sponsored by the company.
The original findings appear to have been posted on The Daily Background where you can also see some recent updates and reaction.
Leave a Comment » | Customer References, Reactions | Permalink
Posted by Joshua Horwitz
January 9, 2009
Here’s a quick look at what our most successful clients are using for their customer reference search options.
Customer reference management is about efficently matching the prospects with a customers that can share their experiences, making search critical to the process. There are two primary ways of searching.
Google-Type Keyword Search
The simpliest user experience is a single keyword search box like Google. For most of our clients, this is the number one way that they like to search. Enter a value and be able to find references that match.
Filter Search
Search filters are helpful to picking the right search term. Your sales people may not have your industry list memorized and sometimes it just helps to show them the available options.
Determining the right search options to offer is very specific to your business, but our advice to clients is offering fewer options is actually better. It provides a simplier experience, focuses searchers on what’s most important, and most importantly ensures there is a reasonable portfolio of customers that match the search criteria.
While the exact search fields and values are very business specific, here are the primary dimensions we’ve seen used most successfully:
- Solution/Product
- Industry
- Company Size
- Geography
- Relevant Value Propositions
- Reference Activities Agreed
- Contact Type (ie: Executive, IT Staff, Business Stakeholder)
- Competitor Involved
We believe the right solution is a combination of Google-type and Filters, with added intelligence to show the best results even if we don’t find any match against one of the search terms. Nobody wants to create a search and see “no results found”.
Have you seen a better way of tackling this important problem? I’d love to know about it.
Leave a Comment » | Customer References, Program Tips | Tagged: Customer References, search | Permalink
Posted by Joshua Horwitz
December 5, 2008
The folks over at Customer Reference Forum have a webinar coming up that you might want to check out. It includes a presentation by Infor’s Abby Atkinson, a client of Boulder Logic. Abby has done a stellar job of proving the businesss justification for her program.
You can register here. ($79 Fee) Topics and panelists are as follows:
Protecting Your Program Budget
Abby Atkinson, Senior Director, Infor, will show how she protected her program budget from planned budget cuts, using important data on the high cost and lost revenue resulting from NOT having a properly managed and funded reference program. She’ll also preview her expanded presentation planned for the 2009 Customer Reference Forum.
Tips on Being Resourceful
Rhett Livengood, Director, Sales and Marketing, Intel, one of the most experienced and insightful reference professionals in our community, who’s been through downturns before, will provide tips on how to be resourceful with your time and budgets.
Protecting Your Job in a Downturn
Corrie Callenbach, Customer Reference Program Manager, Aspect Software, will show how he’s survived through layoffs and acquisitions. Key concept: it’s all about knowing which relationships to cultivate and how to nurture them.
Leave a Comment » | Customer References, Reactions | Tagged: Events | Permalink
Posted by Joshua Horwitz
December 2, 2008
I met with Rackspace Hosting the other day. They are a great company with a super reputation for fanatical customer service. They are also a Boulder Logic client and let me disclose upfront that our conversation was part of a customer reference interview for our company. If you can set that aside, I thought it might be valuable to share some excerpts that talk about the benefits achieved when getting a reference program more organized:
“Its single site for managing customer interaction preferences means that we all have the same information at our disposal.”
“One benefit of this is that we now set thresholds to ensure we don’t “overuse” certain customers. Additionally, we can track activities that have been completed, which means we can easily recognize customer contributions to our business and quantify the impact of the entire program.”
“In essence, our new Customer Reference program makes sure that we can effectively facilitate personal interaction between customers and prospects so they understand what makes the Rackspace support better than the rest.”
Some folks don’t know what to expect or why they should try to get organized. Or maybe his benefits are similar to goals you already have.
Leave a Comment » | Customer References | Tagged: benefits, customer reference management | Permalink
Posted by Joshua Horwitz
November 26, 2008
We are excited about this new module we added for microsite publishing. It allows sales reps to make their own pick of the best content in your library of case studies, video or other customer marketing content and 
display it on their own personalized landing pages they can share with prospects. And each time someone visits the page all the wheres and whens of their visit get tracked.
It’s a pretty simple option that’s available right from where they are searching and finding customer marketing content anyway, so it’s easy to use. It addresses a one of those perennial rifts between sales and marketing: Sales wants the flexibility to tailor what gets delivered to their prospect and Marketing wants to control the message and brand. In this case, both win.
The formal name for the module is Boulder Logic Published Pages. Check it out and let us know what you think.
1 Comment | Customer References, Enhancements | Tagged: Case Study, Customer References, microsite, Sales Tool, Testimonials | Permalink
Posted by Joshua Horwitz
November 17, 2008
You might want to check out Jonathan Baskin’s manifesto on 10 Rules for Branding in Post Branded World. It focuses on shifting thinking away old school brand marketing concepts to some new realities. 
It speaks well to several of the concepts that we regularly evangeize when speaking about marketing with customer references. First, buyers today are exposed to such an overwhelming quantity of marketing messages that they’ve largely learned to tune them all out as noise, reducing your ability to actually reach your audience. Second, buyers have become increasingly skeptical about marketing claims, completely discounting the definition of your brand that your marketing department attempts to craft. Third, new resources and access to information makes it impossible for branding to obscure the actual experience of your customers.
Given these realities, investment in traditional marketing mix should be carefully questioned. Leveraging your satisfied customers and using mediums that amplify their positive experiences overcomes many of the challenges in these new realities, creating an increased rationale for focusing on customer reference programs as a significant foundation for your marketing strategy.
Leave a Comment » | Customer References, Reactions | Tagged: Branding, Customer References, marketing | Permalink
Posted by Joshua Horwitz
October 27, 2008
As this financial crisis ripples into the broader economy, sales forecasts are going to get trimmed and then hard budget decisions will be upon us. If you are involved in customer reference management, you are actually in a pretty good place. Let me share a few thoughts why, and perhaps give you the confidence to communicate this if you are working in an 
organization that needs understand why customer references are even more important in a down economy.
Preventing deals lost to delay/indecision. When the economy gets tough, buyers have to question evey purchase. Their skepticism of your value proposition increases and opportunities are easily lost to delay/indecision. Effectively connecting buyers with customers can restore confidence in the ROI of your offering in way not possible through other means.
Ability to measure the return on investment. Unlike so many of the ways that marketing dollars are spent, the sales impact of customer references can be easily tracked and measured. When investments are being scrutinized, those that can effectively illustrate their results
A prerequisite to getting new business. While another email campaign or white paper may help move along new opportunities, it isn’t uncommon to find that sharing multiple positive references is a requirement of the due diligence process associating with the deal closing. In a down economy, your prospects less likely to let you skip this steps.
A cost effective endeavor. The activities associated with customer reference management are relatively inexpensive compared with many marketing investments and particularly in light of the business impact as mentioned above. This is good news when budgets are being reviewed.
The work done to build relationships and cultivate a diverse community of customers willing to speak positively about their experiences is a investment that will continue to return value to the business on a consistent basis through good times and bad.
1 Comment | Customer References, Reactions | Tagged: Customer References, sales | Permalink
Posted by Joshua Horwitz
October 17, 2008
I’m a big fan of Pragmatic Marketing and their approach to product management and marketing. I wrote this article a while back for their publication, but definitely feel it is still super relevant. Enjoy!
Does this sound like a typical scenario in your company? You get an “S.O.S.” email at 5:00 p.m. blasted out to 20 people asking for a customer willing to serve as a reference. Oh, and we need to get the information to the customer first thing in the morning. A chain of emails continues until noon two days later when the prospect is finally sent the reference’s information. If only there was a better way…
Satisfied customers willing to serve as references for your new prospects often make the difference in closing the sale. However, getting and keeping those references is a challenging and time-consuming job. While so critical to the success of sales, this responsibility often falls in the lap of marketing and product management professionals who may not be as close to the individual customers as their sales representatives.
Read the full article to understand seven ways to acquire and retain customer references.
1 Comment | Customer References, Program Tips | Tagged: Burnout, Nominations, Reference Program, Retain | Permalink
Posted by Joshua Horwitz
