News, events and notable mentions about ReferenceEdge and Point of Reference

Point of Reference Participating at CustomerX Con in Boston, October 17 and 18, 2023

Point of Reference is excited to be a part of CustomerX Con again this year! You don’t want to miss out on the knowledge-sharing event of the fall for customer marketers who drive customer-led growth.

 

October 17-18, 2023

Conspicuous Award Large

Point of Reference Participating in Captivate Collective’s Virtual Advocacy Vendor Speed Dating Event on May 16, 2023

Greetings, esteemed suitors! Please join this event to learn if we’re a compatible partner for you. We live to make your job of centralizing, tagging, automating, managing, and tracking advocates easier, while quantifying the impact of your program’s performance easier.

Registration

 

May 16, 2023

Conspicuous Award Large

Q1’23 Conspicuous Achievement Award Winner Val Stephen

Congratulations to Val Stephen, the winner of our Q1 Conspicuous Achievement Award.
Some of Val’s accomplishments:

  • In just the first 8 months:
    • millions of dollars in influenced revenue
    • ran a highly successful nomination campaign
    • fulfilled an impressive number of reference requests
  • Became a top community member in terms of product roadmap and user group contributions
  • Set up goals in Program Health Monitor to ensure she stayed on course
  • Launched Reference Lead Finder and Prospector to identify new advocates and growth the program
  • Rebuilt the program dashboard to support leadership needs, track progress, ID issues

 

April 20, 2023

Conspicuous Award Large

Q4’22 Conspicuous Achievement Award Winner Jenny Ells

Congratulations to Jenny Ells of Ceridian, our Conspicuous Achievement Award winner for the fourth quarter of 2022. Jenny’s achievements:

  • A successful program relaunch establishing strong executive buy-in and trust with stakeholders
  • An increase in percentage of closed-won opportunities leveraging references
  • A double-digit increase in revenue influenced
  • Fulfilled over 1,000 reference requests
  • Launched Profile Update Minder to ensure data quality

 

February 2, 2023

Conspicuous Award Large

The Advocacy Channel Podcast

We’re excited to share our own David Sroka’s conversation with SaaSquatch CEO Wil Fraser on The Advocacy Channel podcast. They discussed:

  • Considerations related to starting a customer reference program
  • Common reference program pitfalls
  • The importance of reference training for your Sales team

Listen to the conversation

 

December 6, 2022

David Sroka, CEO of Point of Reference, has a conversation with Peerspot’s Alison Bukowski

We are delighted to announce that our own David Sroka joined Peerspot’s Alison Bukowski for episode 3 of the CustomerX Files. They had a lively conversation  discussing the history and evolution of customer reference management as it relates to customer advocacy. They covered it all, including:

  • Executive buy-in for your program
  • Governance Advisory Boards
  • Gaining better metrics AND
  • Plenty of practical information that can be applied immediately

Listen to the conversation on:

Apple

Spotify

YouTube

 

November 9, 2022

Q3 ’22 Conspicuous Achievement Award Winner Martha Casanova

Congratulations to Martha Casanova of Sailpoint, winner of our Conspicuous Achievement Award for the third quarter of 2022!

  • Began building relationships with customers and co-workers; establishing herself as the face of the program
  • Built a strategic roadmap, then proceeded to complete all her goals in the first six months
  • Earned the trust of Sales leadership, resulting in an opportunity to share and discuss program relults with leadership each quarter
  • Recognized the importance of receiving regular feedback from stakeholders and established cadence calls with Sales, CS, and Marketing
  • $20M of advocate influenced revenue (76% increase), 102 fulfilled reference requests (a 10% increase), grew referenceable accounts to 390 (6% increase), and spurred 45 new nominations (60% increase)

October 20, 2022

David Sroka, CEO of Point of Reference, featured on Beating the Drum Podcast

We are delighted to share that our CEO, David Sroka, had a conversation with Margot Leong for her latest episode of Beating the Drum. David and Margot discussed:

  • How to secure executive support
  • Why it is important to think like a CxO
  • Difference between wielding cross-functional influence and working cross-functionally
  • Aligning your goals with those leaders care most about 

 

September 27, 2022

Point of Reference Participating at CustomerX Con in Boston, September 20-21, 2022

Point of Reference is excited to be a part of CustomerX Con this year! It’s the knowledge-sharing event of the fall for customer marketers who drive customer-led growth. See ReferenceEdge in action as Jennifer Land takes part in the Customer Advocacy Vendor Speed Dating session. 

August 2, 2022

Q2 ’22 Conspicuous Achievement Award Winner Jill Fox

Congratulations to Jill Fox of Lever, winner of our Conspicuous Achievement Award for the second quarter of 2022!

  • Established a quarterly incentive program to accelerate nominations and reference requests through ReferenceEdge
  • Procured 640 customer reference nominations from ReferenceEdge users
  • Put the Profile Update Minder feature to work, ensuring reference data was updated and reliable (nearly a 75% participation rate!)
  • Set specific goals using Program Health Monitor functionality for continued program progress
  • Provided Slack aficionados access to reference search by implementing the Slack integration
  • Instituted a systematic reference recruiting practice using Reference Lead Finder
  • Put a comprehensive user training plan in place; new hires (part of onboarding), exisiting users (monthly)
  • Built a dashboard to quantify program results and keep leadership in-the-know

July 20, 2022

Q1 ’22 Conspicuous Achievement Award Winner Colette Cavalia

Congratulations to Colette Cavalia of Databricks, winner of our Conspicuous Achievement Award for the first quarter of 2022!

  • Migrated an extensive list of program projects & requests to ReferenceEdge in record time
  • Completed a full content review and categorization to ensure maximum searchability and utilization
  • High adoption, marketing users
  • Built a customized set of program reports and dashboards
  • Implemented an automated content tracking system
  • All of the above, and managed over 300 reference requests in Q1 2022

April 20, 2022

Point of Reference Participating at the Advocate Marketing Academy Event  May 18-19, 2022

We’re excited to be a sponsor of InEvidence’s Advocate Marketing Academy USA 2022, an in-person event specifically for advocate and customer reference professionals, May 18-19th in Menlo Park, CA. This is one of a very few in-person events focused solely on customer advocate programs and practices.

David Sroka, founder and President of Point of Reference, will be part of the Program Tool Panel from 11:20 am – 12:00 noon, on Thursday, May 19th.  Check out the complete speaker lineup and make plans to attend!

April 12, 2022

Point of Reference and Genesys Co-presenting at PMA Custom Marketing Summit April 13, 2022

David Sroka, CEO and co-founder of Point of Reference, is co-presenting with three customer marketers from Genesys at the Product Marketing Alliance Customer Marketing Summit, Wednesday, April 13th at 9 AM Pacific/12 Noon Eastern.

The presentation, Customer Marketing, All Grown Up:  Integrating all customer advocate motions into a comprehensive vision, covers the many ways that customer advocates can—and should—be included in how we convey our solution success stories to prospective customers, and expand relationships with existing customers.

In this session Sroka leads a Q&A with Johanna Rogers, Brittany Mullen and Lisa Kaspari from Genesys Cloud Services about their elegantly integrated (and impactful!) program that includes their online customer hub, reference management, advisory boards, reviews, content, customer engagement and more.

Register here

The Customer Marketing Summit, produced by the Product Marketing Alliance, is a full day, virtual event with over 25 sessions focused on helping companies harness the power of customer advocates to drive revenue.

March 15, 2022

Q4 Conspicuous Achievement Award Winner Maria Sturgeon

Congratulations to Maria Sturgeon of Teradata, winner of our Conspicuous Achievement Award for the final quarter of 2021!

  • Influenced several hundred thousand dollars in revenue in 2021
  • Highly effective use of both Group Event and Rewards capabilities to support the Peer Advantage mission
  • Led the effort to integrate ReferenceEdge rewards and P.A. member website
  • Generously shared Group Event experience & expertise with the ReferenceEdge community, and Beating the Drum podcast audience (peers)
  • High rates of success cultivating customer advocate relationships

December 30, 2021

Maria Sturgeon, Program Director Peer Advantage at Teradata Featured on Beating the Drum Podcast

We are delighted to announce this terrific interview with one our most accomplished client program managers, Maria Sturgeon at Teradata. Maria is always  full of insights and generous about sharing them!

In her interview with podcast host Margot Leong, Maria discusses what makes the Peer Advantage customer advocacy program a standout in terms of the value it generates, as well as how they’ve addressed new challenges over the last year.

Listen to the conversation here.

October 21, 2021

Sroka Presenting at PMA Custom Marketing Summit Sept 30th

David Sroka, CEO and co-founder of Point of Reference, is speaking at the Customer Marketing Summit, Thursday, September 30th, at 9:30 AM PT/12:30 ET

Sroka’s presentation, Better, Faster, Smarter:  Ditching spreadsheets for purpose-built customer reference software that will transform your program, and your job, features ReferenceEdge clients Benevity, Blackline, Coupa, Genesys Cloud Services, NICE inContact, and Teradata.

The session covers how you can automate routine tasks so that you can focus on strategic alignment with CxO growth goals, quantify the power of your customer advocates, and secure long-term executive support.

Register here

The Customer Marketing Summit, produced by the Product Marketing Alliance, is a full day, virtual event with over 25 sessions focused on helping companies harness the power of customer advocates to drive revenue.

September 10, 2021

Magda Kowalska at DXC Technologies Earns Conspicuous Achievement Award

We are thrilled to announce the winner of our Q2 2021 Conspicuous Achievement Award. The winner was chosen from nominations submitted by account directors, which were then voted on by the team. Congratulations to Magda Kowalska from DXC Technology!!

Magda joined the DXC reference team just a few months ago, but she’s been ripping through her to-do list.

  • Because Magda is highly data-driven, one of her priorities was reports and dashboards for the team and executives. She created dashboards for all regions and identified key metrics to share with executive sponsors.
  • She puts a lot of effort into thinking up ways to improve the program, not just for her users but for her peers.
  • User training has been a focus, which has led to improved documentation and many, many one-on-one program training sessions with end-users.
  • We want to call out her many submissions to the ReferenceEdge roadmap wishlist as well. The time she’s invested will help us improve ReferenceEdge for our entire client base.

August 2, 2021

ReferenceEdge Highlighted as Recommended Sales Tool of the Week

ReferenceEdge, our Salesforce-native customer reference management app, was announced as the “Sales Tool of the Week” by Nancy Nardin of Smart Selling Tools, an organization delivering insights and recommendations about software technologies that improve effectiveness in B2B sales and marketing teams.  Read the review here.

May 18, 2021

Shona Sinclair Earns Our 1st Conspicuous Achievement Award

We are absolutely delighted to announce the winner of our first-ever quarterly client Conspicuous Achievement Award. Congratulations to Shona Sinclair from Epicor!!

Here’s a summary of her accomplishments.

  • Conducted RefEdge training sessions to all teams
  • Enabled Profile Update Minder
  • Launched Nomination and Reference Prospector campaigns
  • Gathered requirements from her international Sales Team
  • Reached all quarterly goals related to adoption, data updates, nominations and revenue influenced
  • Established herself as the face of the program and gained the trust of the Sales teams
  • Collaborated with the heads of the UK team on meaningful incentives for Sales

May 3, 2021

New ReferenceEdge Release Completes the “Final Mile” by Coordinating Sales Reference Calls

Point of Reference today announced its new Calendar Coordinator feature for ReferenceEdge℠, the only native customer reference technology for Salesforce®. This new capability automates the logistics coordination of setting a reference call between a customer and a prospect.

Calendar Coordinator is the latest feature in ReferenceEdge to streamline processes that benefit the Sales team, customers, customer success, and the reference program manager within the Salesforce platform. “ReferenceEdge has automated every step of the reference search, request, and matching process for salespeople,” said David Sroka, President, Point of Reference. “Calendar Coordinator addresses the ‘last mile’ of the customer reference request workflow: connecting the customer reference with a prospect without a salesperson’s having to act as an administrative assistant,” said Sroka. “Without automation, coordination takes time and requires prompt actions on the part of the person doing the coordination. It can quickly become messy and frustrating for all parties involved.”

Once a salesperson has received the name and contact information of a well-matched reference, there is still much to do,” Sroka said. When a customer reference contact is confirmed, the salesperson initiates contact via Calendar Coordinator, which has all the necessary information. The Calendar Coordinator bot first obtains the customer’s availability, then sends those options to the prospect. The salesperson is notified if there are any delays in either parties’ responsiveness. After the parties agree on a date and time, both receive confirmation messages, as does the salesperson. This new feature is included with ReferenceEdge’s many other capabilities at no additional cost.

February 25, 2021

All Green Smart Selling Badge

Point of References Adds Program Health Monitor in Latest Release of ReferenceEdge

DENVER, CO (PRWEB) August 10, 2020 – Point of Reference today announced the availability of Program Health Monitor (PHM) for ReferenceEdge℠, the only native customer reference application for Salesforce®. This new functionality enables ReferenceEdge users to set specific program goals and monitor goal progress via a visual dashboard.

The new capabilities are standard in the just-released version of ReferenceEdge at no additional charge. PHM comes with pre-built goal templates to give clients a jumpstart and also supports defining custom goals. In addition to the visual dashboard showing progress towards set goals, PHM includes periodic program summary notifications and period-over-period comparison of specific metrics. “The time-sensitivity of typical activities coupled with often over-taxed program managers results in goals getting lost in action,” said David Sroka, President, Point of Reference. “PHM provides the structure and tracking to keep goals from becoming out of sight, out of mind,”

PHM is another example of how Point of Reference streamlining and automating processes that benefit both program managers and the C-suite. “We believe that the ability to set program goals that align to corporate imperatives is essential to long-term program success,” Sroka said. “Exec sponsors will view programs differently when this sort of rigor/discipline is demonstrated—and that leads to active not tacit support.”

August 10, 2020

All Green Smart Selling Badge