Organize Your Reference Program for Improved Sanity

One of the biggest challenges I faced when I became a customer reference manager was being organized. Being a reference manager involves so many responsibilities, stakeholders and requests that at times it can become overwhelming. If you aren't careful you'll spend all your time being reactive dealing with requests rather than being proactive. One way to deal with the chaos that comes with this role is to get organized. Here are some suggestions that have helped me organize customer reference programs.

• Develop processes - You can develop processes for sales reference requests, success story development, video testimonial development, and so much more. It takes a little time to develop processes but once you have them it's very helpful in keeping you focused, follow-up, etc. You can also share these processes with others if needed, such as your success story writer so they know the process as well.
• Establish turnaround times - I found early on that it was very helpful to have established turnaround times. One example of this is a 48 hour turnaround for sales reference requests. While sales reps usually wants references immediately they have been respectful of the 48 hour turnaround time. There are exceptions of course and sometimes I would provide the references even quicker. But having the 48 hour turnaround was helpful so I could manage my time better and have enough adequate time to provide a qualified reference that was the right fit. I also established turnaround times for success stories and videos. I learned it helped me keep them on track. My usual turnaround time for a success story was one month but I did turn some around in a few days!
• Track your customer reference information - Whether you use a reference database, Salesforce or whatever, make sure you have your customer information captured somewhere. For instance if someone asks you for a customer that will talk to a prospect, where and how do you have this information captured? This is especially important as you get specific requests like the prospect wants to talk to a customer in the financial sector who has implemented x, y and z products and has a similar environment. As a reference manager you need to be able to quickly provide this information.
• Track requests and projects - This is a great one! Let's say you get four requests today including a press request, analyst and two sales references. Is there somewhere you would track this so you know the actions you took and the follow-up needed? It is also very helpful to track projects like success stories. There are sometimes 20+ steps you have to go through to get a success story produced from getting approval from customer, writer interview, legal review, management review, putting success story in layout, posting to the web, getting them included in employee and customer newsletters etc. It's very helpful at a glance to know what stories you have in the pipeline and where you are with them. This is really great to keep everyone else on task and follow-up with others when needed.