One of the most important things you need before you start your program is make sure you have the right attitude toward customers. The best customer reference programs are when a companies and customers work together for a win/win relationship. If you are building a reference program just to get what you need from customers, you are missing out on a great opportunity build some amazing relationships with your most valuable asset - your customers. There are many things you can do to build the right kind of relationship with your customers.
First, make sure your program is going to track reference activities so you don't overuse customers. Your customers have a full-time job at 'their' company. Anything they do to help you is taking them away from their job, their family and their lives. Be respectful of their time making sure you do everything you can to take up as little of their time as possible. It takes a lot of work to get a reference and the quickest way to lose a reference is to overuse them. By tracking reference activities and customer asks, you can spread the requests among all your references.
Second, as you develop your program make sure to build into your processes the need to be respectful of customers. You should be always courteous to your customers in your e-mails, phone calls etc. One example of this is timing. If you PR team gives you a week to get a customer quote, then immediately start reaching out to customers to ask them for quotes. It takes time to get things approved on their end and so build that into your process. In my book, it's very disrespectful to go to a customer and ask them to give you a quote in a day. Sometimes I know it happens that way, but when possible reach out early.
Third, stay in touch with your customers. Periodically reach out to them to make sure they are still happy references and especially to make sure to thank them for their help with reference activities. If they are unhappy with another department, make sure to forward on their concerns and follow-up. This is what makes a customer for life.
