One of the biggest tips I have for making a customer reference program successful is to build relationships. This is usually the difference between a good and a great customer reference program. Along with this from my experience the most successful reference managers are those that are great at building relationships.
The most important person you'll be building relationships with are your customers. Do you have the ability to get along with everyone regardless of their age, education, job title, industry, background, culture, etc. It's really important to have this skill as customers can tell if you genuinely like them or not. Also if you have a strong relationship with them, you'll be looking for opportunities how to help them be successful by promoting their successes. It goes back to the win-win relationship I keep talking about in my blog.
But even before you can get customer references you need to have strong relationships with your internal customers primarily sales employees! Sales reps and management usually have unique personalities. They are very passionate, driven, no nonsense, quota driven people and I LOVE working with them! To be successful you'll have to understand them and then build relationships with them. Again genuine relationships are helpful as a sales rep can smell a faker a mile away.
You'll also need strong relationships with others in your company including marketing, support, consulting, product management, executives etc. There is absolutely NO way to build a reference program without help from others. So what are you waiting for? Pick three people you want to build a stronger relationship with and get started today!
