Before You Start - Develop Your Plan

For any of you who have built a home you can probably remember how important the blueprints are. In fact, there is no way that a contractor would build a home for you unless you have blueprints. Well just like with a home, you are building a reference program, so you need blueprints also know as a plan. If you can take a few weeks or months to build your plan this will make a huge difference in how successful your program will be.

As you develop your customer reference program plan, here are some things you my want to include in your plan:

• Executive Summary (benefits to company and customers)
• SWOT (Strength, weaknesses, opportunities, threats)
• Business Challenges (Challenges to getting references)
• Program Goals and Objectives (Top three goals and supporting objectives)
• Customer Program Components (Web, newsletters, deliverables)
• Project Strategies (Guidelines, Rules of engagement, scripts, forms)
• Proposed Program Changes (Levels 1-4, benefit matrix etc)
• Job Details/Responsibilities (Including expectations, timelines etc)
• Action Items (90 day plan to get started and then goals for rest of year)
• Research (Industry Research, survey results, Target 100 references, Target 50 success stories )

Before You Start - Research

Before you start your reference program, you need to do some research. First, you need to research your own company. You need to know things about your company including company history, the products/solutions, executives etc. When you talk to the customers you are representing the company and need to represent well. Sometimes in conversation with customers they will ask a question, bring up a concern, etc. Be ready so you can help them out as much as possible or get the customer to the right contact at your company.

Second, you need to know your customers. You need to know who the main contact is at the company. Will you be working with the IT Admin, Database Administrator, Chief Marketing Officer etc? Know who your customers are including the industries they work in, the type of business challenges they face and how your solutions help them overcome these challenges. There is a lot more information you can research about your customers including what products they bought, survey responses they have provided, if they left the publicity clause in their contract with you, etc.

Finally, you should research your company and marketing objectives. You need to align your reference program with these objectives. Here's an example. If you know that your marketing department has a marketing campaign in January focused around virtualization, keep in mind that you'll probably need some references to support that campaign. Or if your company has an initiative around energy savings then you'll need to keep your ears open for customers who have had success in this area. Being aware of these initiatives and being proactive can help you stay ahead of requests and your life will be a lot less stressful.

Before You Start - Hiring the Right Person

This next series of articles are going to focus on what you need to do before you start your reference program. Since I was stuck in a car for 10 hours over the last two days, I spent a lot of time thinking about things companies can do to build the best customer reference programs and some of these happen before you even start your program.

Honestly I think one of the most important things you can do is hire the right person to help you build your program. Here are some traits I suggest you look for in your Customer Reference Program Manager. First they need to be 100% customer focused with a customer first attitude! A lot of people give lip service and say they are customer focused but are they really? Do they always treat customers like they are their number one priority? Do they always keep their commitments to customers like keep appointments, follow up as promised, don't abuse their time, answer their e-mails promptly, etc? Ask them in the interviews for examples when they have gone the extra mile for a customer. Don't trust just anyone with your company's most precious assets - your customers!

Another important trait is someone who is what I call 'sales aware'. This is someone who understands the sales culture and respects them. A sales rep #1 job is to meet their quota, therefore any reference requests you have are not going to be their top priority. Therefore, your reference manager needs to know how to motivate sales to help with the reference program without disrespecting sales or burning bridges with them.

Another trait you should look for include someone who is proactive and always looking for solutions. In another life I was a manager for eight years and I absolutely loved the employees who instead of just whining about problems, came up with suggestions for them! A great reference program manager sees roadblocks as opportunities instead of dead ends. Some other traits that are helpful include: very responsive to employees/customers/partners, organized, team player (hugely important), and has a positive attitude!

Analysts Join Customer Reference Discussion

One of the changes I've seen over the past five years in the reference program world is seeing more analysts talk about reference programs. I have seen analysts such as Gartner and Forrester share insights, research, attend reference conferences, etc. In fact Gartner is having a webinar on August 3 titled "How to Manage a Successful Customer Reference Program."

Other analysts to follow who talk about reference programs include:

• Richard Fouts
• Laura Ramos (Note - I'm not sure that Laura is working on this anymore as I haven't seen new blogs from her for a few months)

In the past six months we've even seen papers published by the analysts which is a sign of more awareness of the value of customer reference programs. Laura Ramos at Forrester published a paper called "Deepen B2B Tech Customer Engagement With Community Marketing". And Gartner put out a press release titled "Gartner Highlights Three-Step Process for Technology Marketers to Create Comprehensive Customer Reference Program" and more is covered in the paper "Marketing Essentials: How to Manage a Customer Reference Program".

Going forward, I think we'll continue to see more from analysts on customer reference programs as more companies realize the strategic value of a reference program on a their success (and bottom line!).

Leveraging Customer Success in PR

During my time as a Reference Manager, I have been privileged to work with some great public relation managers and agencies. Some of the PR agencies I have enjoyed working with include A&R Edelman and Kulesa Faul. In this article, I will share some ways you can leverage customer success in your public relations.

First, there are Customer Win Press Releases. This is a press release announcing a closed sales deal with a new customer. You can find out about these new wins by working with your sales organization or even pulling new win reports from your CRM. I am a huge Salesforce advocate and at my last two companies I created more than 30 reports to stay on top of customer wins, new product wins, top customers etc. Here is an example of a Customer Win Press Release - "Savvis Selects Precise to Further Enhance World Class IT Infrastructure Services".

Second, you have a Customer Momentum Press Release. This is a press release that talks about how an existing customer has purchased more software, seen significant ROI using your product, or invested in a new product/solution with your company. Here is an example of one of these press releases - "Louisville Water Company Taps EMC to Manage Rapid Data Growth". My favorite customer momentum releases are where you can identify ROI saved and do a press release about this. When I worked at LANDesk, one of our customers identified huge savings and did a press release with us about it "aQuantive Saves an Estimated $2.2 Million Using LANDesk Solutions".

Third, you have news articles that are pitched by your agency/PR team to the press. This could be an entire article focused on one customer's success or a quote from your customer on particular topic like virtualization. Here is a customer success that was pitched to the press and an entire story was done around it "CareGroup Healthcare Gets 24x7 Availability with Precise Software".

Fourth, you can nominate your customers for awards. Every year, find out the different awards in your space, find out the details including dates and requirements. Next find great customers that match up and ask them if you can nominate them for the award. Most will be honored and work with you on the nomination but be aware that some companies won't allow it or their PR team might just take your nomination and submit it themselves. While at Precise, I helped nominate Dr. Daniel Chan of the New York Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance for a CIO Top 100 and he won! Here's an example of this press release -"Precise Transaction Performance Management Customer Named One of Computerworld’s Premier 100 IT Leaders for 2010".

Support for Your Reference Program

When I first started as a reference program manager five years ago I was pretty disappointed there weren't more resources to help me quickly get up to speed. There wasn't a customer reference program book to buy, a magazine to sign up for or one 'single' blog to help me become the expert I wanted to become. After digging around I have found some amazing resources I wanted to share with others.

First of all, there's a great conference that I've been to three times and really enjoyed. It's called the Customer Reference Forum and it's put on by Bill Lee. The conference is only two days long which works well with our busy schedules. It's usually held around San Jose or Boston. In 2009 I taught a Getting Started class which was a great opportunity to share my experiences and advice. The number one reason I recommend the conference to reference managers is for networking. We have an amazing community and everyone is willing to help one another.

Second, there are some fantastic vendors out there who can help you. Here are some of the ones I am familiar with: Big Sky Communications, Boulder Logic, inEvidence, Mainstay Partners, metia, Point of Reference, Projectline and TechValidate. There is even customer reference program software you can purchase that is outstanding. I know BoulderLogic and Point of Reference make software but there could be others.

Third, there are groups you can join. For example I belong to six customer reference groups on LinkedIn, in addition to quite a few other customer related groups. These are great to join as you can not only learn new information but post questions you have and get answers. People are always posting news, articles and tips. It's a great resource.

Stakeholders and Successful Reference Programs

One of the most important keys in building a reference program is having support from key stakeholders in your company. In the graphic below I list seven that I have found are critical to helping you build and support your customer reference program.

First and foremost, you need executive support. You need a champion at the executive level who understands the importance of a customer reference program and will support your efforts with headcount and budget. This champion will help you in many other ways too such as selling the program internally.

Second, we have the sales organization which is a critical component to building your program. In my last post, I covered why sales should be your best friend. Sales is an interesting stakeholder because you need each other. They need a successful customer reference program to help them sell more and you need them to build your program. If this relationship is strong, it's a huge win-win for your program. Make sure to involve all players in sales from sales management, field sales, strategic account managers, inside sales, etc to ensure you have a strong program. They all have insights and relationships with accounts and as a whole their feedback should give you a complete picture of accounts.

Third, marketing is another key stakeholder. Whether your program sits in marketing or sales or wherever, you will be working with marketing usually on daily basis. You'll need to have their help in producing collateral, getting deliverables on your company website, getting your customers successes in customer and internal newsletters and many other ways. Get to know your marketing contacts and build strong relationships with them as this relationship will make or break your program.

Other key stakeholders include IT (who will build your systems you need to run your program), partners (who are very important and I will touch on in a future article), services and engineering. You'll also have to include product management but often they will sit in the engineering or marketing organizations.

Customer Reference Programs and Strategy

Being a Customer Reference Manager can be stressful with requests from Sales, Public Relations, Analyst Relations, Marketing, Management, etc. If you aren't careful, you will spend 100% of your time handling tactical tasks rather than being strategic. Balancing my time between being tactical and strategic is definitely one of the biggest challenges I've faced as a reference manager. Therefore, I'd like to recommend some ways you can be more strategic with your Customer Reference Program.

First, make sure your reference program aligns with your company's products/solutions. If your company's sells 75% management products and 25% security products, then you should have references and success stories that align with these numbers. It's also really important to look at your company's yearly initiatives and make sure your reference program support these. For example, if your company's 2010 company objective is to increase product sales of document management then you need to have some document management references and success stories to support the initiative. You should be really hooked into your beta program and working with product managers and beta customers to track which beta customers you can use to get references, success stories, quotes for press releases etc.

Second, I highly recommend you spend at least five hours a week planning and staying organized. Years ago I learned this in a Stephen Covey Time Management class and it has helped me tremendously. I have a special planner that I use to track my current projects and every Friday I spend a few hours following up on items and planning for the next week. This can be a challenge in our roles which I why I usually do my planning Friday afternoons as there are not many meetings scheduled Friday afternoons, some people leave early on Fridays and in general it's a slower day. Another thing you need to spend time doing is tracking customer reference requests. Tracking this information is really important to prevent customer overuse and burnout! One of the biggest mistakes you can make is not tracking what you ask of customers and re-asking them. Your customers are gold and you should never overuse them.

Third, you need to realize your company is going to be around for a long time (hopefully) so never go for a short-term win that might jeopardize your long-term relationship with your customers. Here's an example, let's say you have a press release you've been asked to get a quote for. Everyone keeps pressuring you to get this quote including your manager, public relations, product management etc. In order to get them off your case, you push the customer more than you're comfortable with to ensure you get the quote. Ok so you've got the quote now. Was it worth pushing your company's most valuable asset to get this ONE quote? By pushing too hard you could jeopardize your relationship with the customer and even lose the account. I don't think it's ever worth it. Plus you might need to go back to that customer later to ask for a success story, video etc and they'll remember how you treated them.

Why Sales Should be Your Best Friend

Many years ago while working at Novell, I had the awesome opportunity of being a program manager in the sales organization. One of my responsibilities was to administer a quarterly survey to 1200 sales employees. This was a great experiences as I got to know the sales people, learn how challenging their job can be and understand how important they are to company's success. One complaint I often hear from reference managers is how hard it is to work with sales. I disagree. The sales people in your company should be your best friend and here are some reasons why.

First, they have better insight into your customers than anyone else. When I first started referencing I thought just because I heard that a customer was happy meant I could ask them to be a reference. But that was only a snapshot of their entire relationship with us or a 2D view of the relationship. The sales rep knows about their overall satisfaction, any problems they are having, if they are in the middle of a renewal etc. You need their 3D view of the relationship before assuming anything and definitely before going directly going to a customer. Nothing will ruin your relationship more with sales than bypassing them and going directly to your customers.

Second, great sales people have great relationships with their customers. I have worked with a lot of great sales people over my career but the most remarkable sales person I have worked with was Karl Sartor. Karl could sell ice cubes to an Eskimo BUT he didn't need to. Watching him with customers was like watching magic happen. He always understood their needs, understood how to help them solve their pains, respected them and genuinely cared about them. He knew his customers so well and was able to get them to do almost any reference activity just by simply asking and yes that included Fortune 100 customers!

Third, sales people know their stuff. The turnover for reference managers is high, most likely due to the intensity and never-ending requests, and sales reps usually stick around companies longer. They know the company, the customers and the product. Take advantage of their knowledge. Ask them for help. I promise that they'll love it!

Do yourself a favor. Get to know your sales management, sales reps and join sales calls/meetings. I used to sit on weekly calls with the North America sales team and just listen. I'd listen for current engagements, new wins etc and it really helped me to stay in touch with them. Another idea is to survey your sales teams often. Are you serving them well enough? What else do they need from you? Do they have new reference opportunities for you? Trust me. If you take care of them, they'll take care of you!

Customer Reference Activities 101

One of the first things you'll need to do when setting up your customer reference program is to identify which customers will do which reference activities. Most people when they think of references think of sales references but there are other reference activites that you will probably need to ask your customers to do.

First, yes there are sales references. A sales reference is when a customer speaks to customers or prospects by phone or e-mail about their experiences with deployment, wins and ROI results. Typically they ask want to speak to a customer who has similar environment (industry, size, problems, etc) so knowing this information about your references is important! Most customers can do sales references without having to get approval from corporate or their management. The only limitation on this is that some large companies have a policy that their employees can only give references to 'existing' customers and not prospects.

Second, you have analyst references. The reason I list this next is because again most customers can do these without getting corporate or management approval, as it's a confidential reference and the company's name will never be used. Note that this reference is only applicable if your company is involved with analysts, such as being included in a Gartner Magic Quadrant. If you have been asked by Gartner (or another analyst) to give references, then you will need to be sure to provide the best references you have. Depending on which analyst you are working with, they might ask for a variety of references such as some enterprise, mid-size and smaller companies. The analyst will base a lot of his/her decision where to place your company in the Magic Quadrant on your customer's feedback, so again take your time to make sure you are providing the best references you have!

Third, you have press references including a quote for a press release, interview for a magazine or a customer success the PR agency will pitch to the press. These are a bit trickier as typically a customer will need to get approval from corporate or management so they don't jeopardize their job. Note on this one is DO NOT assume a customer can't do it until you ask them. I had one customer who let us pitch his story to the press and when a feature article ran in a prominent health magazine he was called up at a company meeting by his senior management and he got a standing ovation! Few tips on this include: Give your customer enough time to get approvals, qualify customers as they join your reference program so you know BEFORE you get a press request who your options are and if possible give your customer a quote to approve. The last one is my favorite as it really works. If you ask a customer for a quote, typically they just don't know what to say and it can be overwhelming to some. However if you give them a quote, they will approve it, ask for changes or come up with a new one but somehow giving them a quote is a motivator.

Fourth, you have a written success story. These are pretty straight forward but here are some tips I've learned in five years of working with success stories. Always try to find out up front if there's approval they will need to get the story published. There is nothing more frustrating than working on a success story and paying for one to get written and then the customer says it can't be published. Also make it easier on the customer. I ask them if they want to fill out a questionnaire vie email or if they want me to do a phone interview with them. The easier you make it on them, the smoother the process with go. Customers are busy and they are doing you a favor so always be respectful of their time. Another tip is to really focus on the ROI results. To me if you don't have ROI information such as how much time/dollars saved, productivity improvements etc then you don't have a story. Make sure to always leverage the success story everywhere you can - the web, collateral, newsletters etc. Finally, if you Twitter and/or Facebook, make sure to announce the availability of a new success story!

Fifth, you have a video testimonial which is a valuable sales and marketing tool! These can be used on your website, at events, in newsletters, on sales visits, etc. One of my favorite things to do with these is transcribe them and then use their story to start writing a success story, quotes to use in collateral etc. Again it's important to ask up front who needs to approve these to get them published and go through the approval process before you start. These videos can be expensive and you are wasting precious marketing dollars if you don't get these approved first. Some other tips: film customers at events when possible as this will save you money and time and a lot of customers don't have to get approvals like they would if you film onsite, shop around for vendors as prices can vary from $5k to $50k a video, when possible have a company representative at the video shoot for many reasons and provide your customer a video guidelines document to help them out as most are not professional actors.

PS - There are many other activities such as customer speaker opportunities, site visits etc and we'll talk about those in future posts!

The Power of Customer Advocates

The most valuable sales and marketing tool your company has isn't a tool, it's your customers! Your job as a customer reference or marketing manager is to find your customer advocates and share their success stories. What are customer advocates? I estimate about 5% of your customers are 'true' advocates, customers who love your product and will do anything for you. The trick is finding them. For those of you who have Net Promoter or other customer surveys, you might have a higher percentage of 'happy' and 'satisfied' customers but are they really your customer advocates?

There are many ways to find customer advocates. First, ask your sales and support teams. They talk to customers daily and know who is passionate about your product. Second, check your online forums. Typically, these customers are the biggest contributors as they not only use and like the product but they want others to find success with the product too. Third, get your hands on customer survey results and analyze them. When I did a customer survey at LANDesk, I would not only look at the responses for the Net Promoter question but also correlate that with other responses to look for patterns. In fact, at the last two companies I've worked at I have added a survey question asking customers if they are willing to be references and the options were Yes, No, and Maybe and then a comments section. The comments section was so helpful as some of the advocates would mark yes and then in the comments field put comments like "whatever you need" or "I really love your product!". Fourth, check out their LinkedIn and Facebook pages as often an advocate will mention your product on these pages. For example, their headline on LinkedIn might read "Passionate LANDesk Network Administrator." These are just four suggestions. Get creative as there are many more ways you can find these advocates!

A few last thoughts about customer advocates. A customer advocate who is passionate about your product can also become a detractor if mistreated. Their passion can work for you or against you so always treat them with utmost respect, ensure your vendors treat them well and don't misuse them by asking for too many reference activities. Also, they are usually customer advocates for many things. They typically have the type of personality that if they like something they will share their positive experience whether it's software, a book they've read, a doctor they like, a restaurant they enjoye etc. For fun, Google their name. Typically you'll see they've done success stories for other companies and will most likely do that for you as well!

What is a Customer Reference?

Simply put a reference is a customer who is willing to share their positive experiences with prospects and/or customers. They can share their experiences many ways including a sales reference, press/analyst interview, written success story, video testimonial and an on-site visit.

One of the questions I usually hear is how do you know if a customer is a reference? It's easy. You ask and you ask everyone. First of all, start with your sales people, they know who their 'advocates' are. Second, see if you can get your hands on any customer surveys. If you are lucky, your company has a Net Promoter survey and you can find your promoters and ask them. Third, ask around the company. Ask product management, support, executives, inside sales and anyone else who works with customers.

To help refine this more, I made a "Customer Reference Map". Basically you can ask two questions. How positive has the customer's experience been? What are the company policies around giving references? By doing this you can 'map' where your customer fits. Now take note because sometimes a company policy won't allow a customer to do a 'public' reference (ie talk to the press, written success story, etc) but they can do 'private' references (talk to analysts and sales references) Here is the map I've developed to help you identify what type of reference you have.

Another question I get asked is how many references should I have. It's a good goal to have five percent of your customer base be a customer reference at some level. I was fortunate to work at a company where I had 12%! One last note is it's better to go for 'quality' than 'quantity'. I would rather have 50 solid references that I could count on to help me with reference activities than 500 references that aren't as solid or at least a good mix!

Reference Programs - Powerful Sales & Marketing Tool!

Does your company have a Customer Reference Program? If you have one, are you doing a good job managing it? How are you doing at balancing strategic and tactical tasks to ensure you are truly adding value to your company's bottom line?

Let's start at the beginning. What is a customer reference program? A Customer Reference Program (CRP) is a business function frequently found in large business-to-business organizations. Customer Reference Program managers are responsible for gathering and fulfilling requests for references to help Sales people obtain new clients and provide proof of customer success stories for Industry Analysts and the media. (Wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Customer_reference_program)

Honestly I consider customer references to be the single most powerful and influential sales tool a sales person has. When I worked at Novell years ago, I was responsible for a sales survey that went to 1200 sales employees. Every quarter I heard the same things. Success stories were the most influential piece of collateral they used and references were VERY critical to them closing deals! Companies need to have Customer Reference Programs for these three main reasons:
1. FREE Your Sales Staff - Your sales guys have a hard enough job especially in this economy, so why burden them with hunting down sales references?
2. INCREASE Your Sales - Research shows that sharing customer successes help close a deal more than almost any other resource. Here's a good article on "Using Success Stories to Close Sales". At the end of the day a prospect wants to hear about or speak to a customer who has a similar scenario to them(industry, company size, network environment, customer pains etc)
3. HELP Your Customers - There are customer advocates of yours that WANT to share their success. It's your job to find them and get their stories published on your website, in the press etc. If done right, this is the biggest win-win of reference programs!

I have been a Customer Reference Program Manager for five years and it's not easy. There are not many of us out there. I would estimate maybe 1000 worldwide full-time or part-time reference managers. There are also a lot of resources but they are scattered all over the web. In this blog I will share information on:
- Customer Reference Program basics
- Vendors that can help you with your program
- Resources that can help you be more successful with your program

One of the first tips I will share is a great handbook! Big Sky Communications, Inc. and Boulder Logic have teamed up to offer this comprehensive series of articles to highlight and discuss some best practices around developing customer references. http://customerreferencehandbook.com/

In the meantime, if you have a topic you want me to cover in this blog or a question about reference programs shoot me an e-mail at mslizpedro@gmail.com. I look forward to our journey together!