TruPoints™

"Customers are cynical, suspicious, and cautious. As the volume of advertising escalates, they are turning to independent, third-party, authorative sources for recommendations and advice."

- Al & Laura Ries, The Fall of Advertising and the Rise of PR

"Whether explaining or complaining, joking or serious, the human voice is unmistakably genuine. It can't be faked."

-The Cluetrain Manifesto

The Dilemma

"We're beating up our best customers with constant reference requests."

"Reference coordination is taking way too much time away from selling."

"Lack of reference availability is slowing down sales."

"Reference 'hoarding' isn't serving the greater good."

If you're hearing or experiencing too much of this, you've hit the limits of conventional reference management, that is, satisfying reference requests exclusively through live, one-on-one reference calls. Managing the continuous demand for customer references "the way it's always been done" to meet the needs of all parties involved, is no longer achievable, or at least sustainable.

Sales always needs more references, and earlier in the sales cycle than is typically practical. References push back, for good reason: they have day jobs. And marketing is caught in the middle trying to appease everyone, but with low odds of being successful.

Unconventional Reference Management

A new, creative solution to an age-old problem is required; one that transforms an often unregulated, haphazard, back channel model into a customer leverage system that expedites sales.

Our solution allows reference program managers and salespeople to allocate just a fraction of the time---minutes versus hours, days or weeks---currently spent on reference-related activity.

Always available, authentic customer experiences presented firsthand in streaming media satisfy over 75% of prospects' due diligence needs. The remaining minority will have questions that may be answered by a subject matter expert (e.g. product manager), through an email exchange facilitated by a salesperson, or, in limited cases, require a live phone conversation. These phone conversations, unlike those occurring in a conventional reference program, are shorter and more concise.

The technology used to manage and deliver audio or video interviews is our DirectToClose™ System and is hosted and maintained by Point of Reference.

For prospects:

  • 24/7 reference insight availability
  • Secure, invitation-only access
  • Complete interview transcripts
  • No additional software required

For salespeople:

  • Intuitive, but sophisticated search interface
  • Delivery of reference interviews to prospects in minutes
  • Event messaging including detailed email alerts following site visits

For program managers:

  • Granular interview categorization by geography, solution set, product, etc.
  • Full reporting capabilities on interview usage activity

Reference information is only as good as its relevance and usefulness to your prospects. Conditions change on a monthly, if not weekly basis. We address the dynamic nature of customer reference management through our ongoing account review process, and by providing you with comprehensive, intuitive management and ad-hoc reporting capabilities.

Content updates

Market positioning changes, and new product or product version launches are just a few of the possible internal condition changes that require updates to reference topics and/or responses. The maintenance aspect of any reference program is typically one of the most challenging—and most likely to be put on the backburner.

By outsourcing the tactical elements of building and maintaining reference content your program managers are free to focus on more strategic, higher value areas. Your salespeople, free from all the typical prospect/reference coordination distractions, can refocus their time and efforts on more productive sales activities.

Content sources

Customer reference advocacy comes in many forms. We believe unscripted and unrehearsed customer experiences, the literal "voice of the customer," have the credibility to influence decision makers and reduce live reference calls. As part of our solution we will work with you to build and host a library of reference interviews categorized by, for instance, vertical market, solution set, business problem, product, etc.

Sources include:
One-on-One Interviews

Acting as an independent 3rd party, Point of Reference employs a proven methodology for designing, conducting and recording balanced, credible reference interviews. Completed interviews, audio or video, typically covering 10-15 topic areas, are lightly edited for quality purposes, and approved first by our clients then by the reference before being made available for use by sales or marketing.

Reference Forum Interviews

Point of Reference will coordinate, facilitate and record reference forum interviews that include one reference and two or more prospects. These 30-60 minute Q&A session recordings will be edited into topic areas for easy access by prospects. We can also make use of group interviews you have previously recorded.

Other

If you have captured your customers' experiences in other forums, audio or video, such as analyst or press interviews, speaking engagements, etc., this content may be complimentary to the other sources described above. We are experts at evaluating and repurposing reference content for use on your reference center, regardless of the source.