- Participation in your company's Customer Advisory Board
- Getting individual and/or organizational recognition for their product leadership
- Opportunities to network with peers
- Spotlighting their company and IT department successes
- Access to product roadmap and opportunities to provide input on product development
- Access to executives and product teams
- Early adopter and beta program opportunities
- Press, speaking and video testimonial opportunities
One of the most valuable benefits is the opportunity to participate in your Customer's Advisory Board (CAB). At one company we had two CABs, one for executives and one for for senior technical management. Customers who helped us with reference requests were asked to participate with customers who helped us with all the levels (sales, press, analyst, success stories and videos) being given top priority. If your company doesn't have a customer advisory board, I recommend you look into it as it's very beneficial to your customers and your company. For additional information on Customer Advisory Boards, check out Customer Advisory Board org.
Another opportunity we provided reference customers was the opportunity to provide input into the product roadmap and development. At LANDesk, I had great relationships with the product managers and often when they needed input on product development or roadmap, we would whip up a survey and send it to the reference customers. This was a very powerful win-win for the customers and the company. The reference customers loved giving input and of course the product managers loved getting valuable feedback from our customer advocates.
On opportunities to network with peers, this also worked well when I worked at LANDesk. I often had reference customers ask me to introduce them to other reference customers in their industry to get their input on IT direction and strategy. They really valued that I was able to introduce them to their peers in the same industry, same size company and with the same IT challenges.
These are just a few ideas but hopefully it gets your started thinking about how you can provide value to your customers with your reference program. One of the greatest things about Customer Reference Programs is there really isn't a right or wrong way ro run your program. You can be innovative as you build your program and always be on the lookout for more ways to serve your customers!
