Customer Advisory Boards as a Reference Benefit

One way to incent your more invested and strategic customer references is to invite them to participate in your customer advisory board. This is an activity that benefits not only your customer but is a huge benefit to your company as well! Whether you are a startup or an established company, customer advisory boards are an incredibly powerful activity that requires some investment but the payoffs are astounding. Honestly some of my favorite times in my career were when I participated in the customer advisory boards at LANDesk Software. I could spend weeks talking about this topic (and maybe I will in the future) but here are some highglights.

Customer Benefits

• Opportunity to give feedback on product development
• Exchange ideas, best practices and recommendations with other customers
• Meet company executives and senior management

Company Benefits:

• Work with key customers to ensure products meet needs
• Build relationships with key customers
• Help close sales deals in the pipeline and identify new opportunities
• Learn how your customers are using your products
• Validate ideas for new products and features
• Learn about future technologies your customers are evaluating and how this will impact your product's future

Want to read more about customer advisory boards? Learn more:

• Customer Advisory Boards Industry Association
• Customer Advisory Councils on Wikipedia
• Geehan Group
• Pragmatic Marketing Article

What's in it for Customers?

As you recruit customers for your customer reference program you will often be asked by customers "What's in it for me"? In an earlier post I said I am not a big fan of reward programs for customer reference programs however over the years I have learned there are other benefits which customers really value. Here are some I have used:

• 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!

Before You Start - Customer Incentives

One of the most controversial topics in the Customer Reference Program world is the customer incentives. On yesterday's Gartner call Richard Fouts said that 90% of customers are willing to be references without any sort of incentive. This just validates what I strongly recommend to others. When I first started customer referencing five years ago I researched this topic quite heavily and solicited feedback from others. Here are some reasons why I chose to not have an official incentive program for reference customers.

First, customers themselves say it isn't necessary. If 90% of customers say they are willing to be a reference without an incentive, why would we incent them? I'm not saying I haven't ever incented them, I just have never had an official rewards program. Second, I want genuine customer advocates to be part of my reference program. I don't want to buy their loyalty or incent them for doing something they want to do anyway. Third, I have always been a one person show at my companies and it takes time to administer a reference reward program. For me, I would much rather spend my time on more strategic tasks.

What I suggest instead is providing customer value to customers who participate in your reference programs. This can include access to executives, input into your product roadmap, invitation to participate in customer advisory boards, promoting them as a thought leader in case studies and in press, opportunities to speak at conferences, and others along these lines. One example of this was the beta program at LANDesk Software. When I got an e-mail from the beta manager about a new beta coming up, I would send an e-mail out to the reference customers giving them first dibs on being part of the beta.

One last suggestion is that you have to make a shift mentally from "I'm bugging our customers" to I am providing value to my customers. Develop a win-win relationship between you and your customers and not only will you have a succesful reference program but this will impact your sales revenue as well. Good luck to you as you build your program and Happy Referencing!