FAQ

All Salesforce users do not need ReferenceEdge licenses. ReferenceEdge users are determined primarily by the process you choose for reference request management. Using the full request automation capabilities of ReferenceEdge requires that 1) all reference requesters, and 2) all owners of reference account relationships have ReferenceEdge licenses.

Typically this includes Sales, Marketing and Customer Success/Account Managers, but may include any Salesforce user with a valid need. Salesforce offers a platform license with reduced functionality. At 25% of the cost, it is a cost-effective option for CSMs and marketing users, but not sales users who require access to opportunities.

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A typical implementation is completed in 5-6 weeks. Steps include:

• Implementations follow our organizational readiness methodology (Launch Playbook) because technology without change management is not a recipe for success.
• Setup and configuration on a Salesforce sandbox (test environment(s)).
• Customer reference data and content import (if applicable).
  – This step has the greatest potential to extend the implementation timeline.
  – More data types require more import files and preparation time.
• Permissions verification and user acceptance testing.

Repeat previous steps on production (or additional sandboxes).

• Train
• Go-Live

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A typical implementation is completed in 5-6 weeks. Steps include:

• Implementations follow our organizational readiness methodology (Launch Playbook) because technology without change management is not a recipe for success.
• Setup and configuration on a Salesforce sandbox (test environment(s)).
• Customer reference data and content import (if applicable).
  – This step has the greatest potential to extend the implementation timeline.
  – More data types require more import files and preparation time.
• Permissions verification and user acceptance testing.

Repeat previous steps on production (or additional sandboxes).

• Train
• Go-Live

Every use of a customer reference contact and customer reference content is associated to an opportunity automatically. The result is an ability to quantify Revenue Influenced*, by far the most common metric in our domain.

• We’ve included a package of over 50 pre-built reports and over 20 dashboard charts with ReferenceEdge. The package is a result of real world client needs.
• As a native app, we leverage standard Salesforce reports and dashboard functionality. Nothing proprietary to learn. You can clone/modify any item, and create custom reports or charts as needed.

*Revenue Influenced is the amount of closed/won opportunity revenue influenced, in part, by the use of a customer reference or customer content during the sales process.

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A reference program needs a leader, which, ideally, is full-time and dedicated to managing all elements of a customer advocate program.

Many clients have customer marketing and advocacy teams where one or more team members act as ReferenceEdge administrators.

Following launch they will:

• maintain executive engagement to support change remain aligned with top company growth goals
• meet with stakeholders to ensure the advocate database reflects users’ needs
• continuously promote the program
• educate new and existing users on the program and technology
• monitor the ReferenceEdge dashboard and act on insights
• manage some portion of advocate request fulfillment
• process advocate nominations (if applicable)
• manage customer content (peer reviews, videos, case studies, etc., if applicable).

The more ReferenceEdge automation is enabled, the more time there is to spend on strategic activities versus repetitive, low-value, tactical activities. The more effort invested, the bigger the return.

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We believe adoption is comprised of a combination of awareness, education and data quality; and include specific features for each.

• Thoughtful, customer-drive UI design
• In-Line help
• Suggested references from the opportunity page
• Data quality update automation
• Fun! ReferenceEdge gamifies user participation, rewarding desirable behaviors such as requesting the use of advocates, nominating customers to be advocates, helping a peer secure the use of an advocate, updating advocate profiles and more.

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In a word: highly. ReferenceEdge was designed with 20+ years of customer advocate technology experience. With 20/20 hindsight we knew where clients differed from one another and therefore where flexibility was essential. The architecture is expressly built to grow with client needs, and accommodate a wide range of Salesforce environments.

ReferenceEdge is a 100% Salesforce-native, ground-up design launched in 2013.

• Lack of active leadership support required to reinforce change
• Under qualified or overburdened program leaders
• Lack of emphasis on alignment between program goals and company goals
• Insufficient availability of program or Salesforce technical resources to make timely decisions or complete tasks
• A misperception that advocate management is a project (i.e., autopilot after technology launch) versus an ongoing program

We take great care to identify these obstacle, and propose corrective actions as part of our support model. The importance of leadership support cannot be under estimated.

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• Each client is assigned an account director, who is a multi-skilled (ReferenceEdge, customer marketing & advocacy, Salesforce) and has an average tenure of 5 years
• Your assigned account director is with your from implementation onward
• They act as tier 1 support because they know your particular environment best
• Our account directors act as your conduit to real-world program best practices

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ReferenceEdge offers pre-built integrations with Slack, Microsoft Teams, Salesforce CRM Analytics & Experience Cloud, Gainsight, UserEvidence and Influitive.

We also have integrations available for Marketo and Eloqua landing pages and campaigns.

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Yes, users can search for reference accounts and customer content such as peer reviews, case studies, videos, press releases and more. We have based our functionality on Salesforce CRM Content, and enhanced it to meet the needs of our domain.

• Content may be uploaded to Salesforce or linked via URL (e.g., Vimeo, YouTube)
• Users share content with prospects through our Microsite feature
• All click activity that occurs on the Microsite is captured by ReferenceEdge and users, salespeople for instance, receive daily summaries of click activity so they know who is looking at what before their next call
• Report on what content is being shared, what is being opened/downloaded, and how it’s rated
• Microsite activity is automatically associated to an opportunity and included in Revenue Influenced reporting

We could go on as there’s much more functionality, but these are the basics.

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• We provide training via web conference for both ReferenceEdge administrators and end-users (e.g., sales, marketing, customer success)
• Over the years we have found that just-in-time training for administrators is most effective
• The 4 hours of training we anticipate providing to administrators occurs over the first 30 days of the implementation project
• End-users attend 30-45 minute training sessions, which we can support or deliver. We will also train your trainers (e.g., Sales Enablement) if desired.

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If your organization has an investment in (and adoption of) applications such as Seismic, HighSpot, Uberflip or one of the many content-centric sales enablement applications, then you may simply choose to not use ReferenceEdge’s content management/sharing capabilities.

The most important thing is that content use data, associated to opportunities, is part of Revenue Influenced reporting.

We believe we have some very compelling reasons to consider ReferenceEdge for content management and sharing, but we also recognize that establishing a single source to ensure adoption is very important. If that single source is firmly established then don’t mess with it.

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• ReferenceEdge is installed on your company’s Salesforce CRM instance. That means that the application—and all related data and content—are hosted entirely on the Salesforce platform.
• There is no Point of Reference cloud.
• ReferenceEdge undergoes at least one security review annually, a condition of our partnership agreement.
• All general code releases undergo a rigorous security review (automated and human) before before being shared with customers’ Salesforce system administrators, who then follow established deployment processes and sprints.

Your security/IT team has already vetted Salesforce CRM. and will have a lot less concern about a 100% Salesforce-native solution than with a conventional SaaS application.

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• Installation & Configuration – Salesforce administrators (SFA) will work in tandem with one of our team members to install and configure ReferenceEdge. This will require approximately 2-3 hours per Salesforce Org.
• Profile/Permission Set Modification/Creation – User access will be provided through permissions. The Salesforce administrator will make changes to profiles/permission sets depending on the preferred approach. The time required depends on how profiles and permissions sets are used in your instance.
• Run Data Imports – This only applies if there is the need to bulk import customer reference data or customer content from other sources.
• License Management – While this can be automated, if done manually, license are issued, revoked and reassigned by a Salesforce administrator.
• ReferenceEdge Updates – Updates to ReferenceEdge are released up to 3 times per year. Depending on the nature of the update, up to 30 minutes of SFA time will be required. Detailed, step-by-step release notes are provided as part of each release.

As a native application ReferenceEdge simply works in the Salesforce Mobile app. Users are given mobile permissions as part of setup and ReferenceEdge becomes part of their mobile experience.

Predictive AI is the foundation of our Advocacy Gap Predictor offering for high activity advocacy programs. It uses Salesforce CRM Analytics to deliver powerful insights about advocate demand and availability in the next 30, 60, 90 days.

Agentforce, Salesforce’s generative and agent AI technology will be part of the ReferenceEdge solution in 2025. This will include Agentforce functionality in the Slack UI. Most importantly, data security is addressed by the Einstein Security Layer, which is consistent with the high standards Salesforce has always maintained.

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There are both customer and user rewards in ReferenceEdge. See the FAQ topic How does ReferenceEdge encourage user adoption? for a description of user rewards.

The customer rewards feature allows you to associate predefined points for completed activities such as reference calls, case studies, event speaking, etc. Rewards are accrued at the contact and account for future redemption.

Yes. ReferenceEdge is currently available in 9 languages other than English:

• Chinese (traditional, simplified)
• French
• German
• Italian
• Japanese
• Korean
• Portuguese
• Spanish.

Yes, as a native application developer we must support both UIs until Salesforce decides to retire Classic.

Like Salesforce, some of our newest product functionality is only available in the Lightning UI.

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