Maeve Naughton is an expert in the field of customer references and loyalty, and we are lucky to have her write for us today. Her post is a great reminder to us to appreciate all our customers, big and small. The little guy is often over looked but may actually have a larger impact than we think. Read on to see why.
Ask a sales person who their most important customer is and I bet 9 times out of 10 they’ll say company X because they’ve spent $2M with the company. Ask the CFO, and he/she will probably tell you the same thing. In fact, ask almost anyone in your company and they’ll agree. The most important customer is the one that spends the most amount of money. In a few cases, you might get the response of the most important customer is the highest ranking company on the Fortune list.
Do you agree? What makes the most important customer for you, the reference professional? Is it the largest spending customer? Is it best known brand name? I think it can be, but it’s absolutely not the final determinant. As a reference professional you know that there’s a lot more to a powerful customer than a big P.O. or a brand name. Right? Gosh, I hope so.
I think that the most important customer is going to be the one with the largest sphere of influence. It’s going to be the person who has the most impact on the future success of your business, not the business that has already happened – ie. the purchase order. Does “word of mouth” ring a bell?
I spend quite a bit of time interviewing customers for press release, case studies and general reference requests. I ask the customer how they first found out about my company. Sometimes it’s through a reseller, other times they had worked with my company’s products at a previous company and there are those that found out about us through word of mouth.
I have found that it’s sometimes the “little” guy that has more pull than the larger customers when it comes to their peers. Sometimes it’s the VP at a small company that is the president of the local network security group and therefore he has a lot of say and pull in what his members hear. More than likely he also has a large amount of influence because people look up to him and will ask questions of him when one of the members is looking for a new network security solution. Maybe it’s the medium sized business contact that is willing to talk to ten prospects a quarter and tell them how great your servers are or is willing to speak at conferences on your behalf. These are the guys you can’t shrug off. They have a sphere of influence that is real.
Just because a customer is a Fortune 10 company doesn’t mean that they are the most valuable asset to your company. If they aren’t willing to let the world know that they are using your products, then they might not be as strong as a force as the smaller guy who’s not ranked on Fortune’s list.
However, don’t be misled and think that just because one of your customers has 10,000 followers on Twitter or 6,000 friends on Facebook that they’re influential. Know the power of their influence by asking them.
Maeve Naughton has been focused on customer references for more than a decade and has been responsible for creating and managing programs within technology companies. She has worked with small customers up to Fortune 50 customers for media and marketing opportunities such as press releases and case studies, as well as sales and analyst references. She currently is on the board of the Customer Reference Knowledge Sharing Network. Read more of Maeve’s thoughts at Customer Reference Programs.
