“Where should a customer reference program live?” We get asked this question frequently during our sales process. A prospective client recognizes the “customer reference problem,” and the need to put some focus on fixing it, but isn’t sure what department the customer reference program should call home.
Ten years ago, the vast majority of customer reference programs fell into the marketing department. Today, a little less so. One of the big changes over the last decade is the rise of the customer success function, which can dovetail nicely with customer advocacy. We also have clients who determined their program fits better into Sales Operations or Product Marketing.
The “right” home for the customer reference program depends on how the function is classified. Is it actually customer marketing, field enablement, PR, or customer experience? The answer to that question is founded in the program’s end goals and metrics used to determine if those goals are being achieved.
When we’re asked for a definitive answer, a best practice, we answer with a few questions:
Passion
If the leader overseeing the customer reference function isn’t a believer, then the only way the program will succeed is if the program manager is passionate, influential, and a real go-getter. Still, it’s going to be an uphill battle without someone with a seat at the leadership table who is all-in.
Synergy
We see programs that reside in a department where it is the outlier struggling to get traction. The program managers may attend department meetings and find they have little in common with their teammates, and feel isolated. It feels like they’re in a silo, there’s no synergy. Of the possible home base departments listed earlier, we tend to find product management to be the least successful option. Yes, product management does establish relationships with customers through beta testing, and possibly through customer advisory boards. But those intersections are too sporadic for most customer reference programs to thrive when located in product management.
Bandwidth
A leader may have great intentions, but if they have a full plate of other initiatives/responsibilities, they won’t be able to provide the necessary executive support. Leadership’s vocal and visible support can make all the difference when a program needs help with backing changes in process, policy, and behaviors. For example, the customer reference program may need IT support, which can be hard to come by, or inter-departmental coordination glitches may require leadership to articulate the end goal of collaboration and customer experience. If leadership doesn’t have the time to advocate for these needs, the customer reference program will flounder.
Budget
It’s ideal for a customer reference program to have a discrete budget for staff, technology, and potentially, contractors. Getting budget allocations ahead of producing results requires a leap of faith and vision. That tends to be leadership’s domain, a reason they are in strategic positions. A customer reference program without the necessary resources to recruit customers, manage access, and engage internal stakeholders is likely to fail.
In conclusion, be sure your company gives these considerations sufficient deliberation before moving forward with a customer reference program initiative. Our experience is that these variables make all the difference between a program that thrives or merely exists. These same considerations come into play if the original executive sponsor departs. The replacement may have very different views and priorities. An executive change should prompt a re-evaluation of the program’s home, always with an eye toward providing the best chances of success for the program, and therefore its stakeholders, including sales, marketing, PR, demand gen, events, and more.
As this infographic illustrates, a mature advocacy program is responsible for continuously identifying advocates, maintaining accurate advocacy data, protecting customer relationships, and aligning with top company goals to accelerate growth.
The infographic contains six key components. Here's a description of each for you to translate into your own talking points.
Every advocate starts as a customer.
The journey begins when account teams, customer success managers, support teams, and services organizations create positive experiences that build trust and confidence.
As customers achieve success, some become enthusiastic supporters of the company, its products, and its people. These customers are identified as potential advocates and introduced to the advocacy team.
The advocacy team interviews these individuals, learns about their experiences, captures important details about their interests and expertise, and creates a searchable advocate profile.
The result is a discoverable advocate: someone who can be found, matched, and engaged when the business needs credible customer voices.
Without this process, valuable customer relationships remain hidden inside co-workers’ heads or team spreadsheets, unavailable to the broader organization.
Great advocates are rarely discovered by the advocacy team alone. It’s really just too much to ask of any one part of the organization. Every customer touchpoint plays a part in cultivating and retaining advocates.
Customer success managers see customer enthusiasm firsthand. Account teams hear success stories during business reviews. Support teams witness customer loyalty. Product teams interact with passionate users who influence future direction.
A successful advocacy program creates a systematic way for all customer-facing teams to identify and nominate potential advocates, as well as a means for customers to self-identify..
Think of it as building a talent pipeline.
The broader the participation across the organization, the stronger and more diverse the advocate community becomes.
This collective effort ensures the advocacy database reflects the full spectrum of customer success stories across industries, products, geographies, and use cases.
The advocacy team serves as the steward of the organization's advocacy data.
Their responsibilities fall into three primary areas.
First, they recruit continuously. Advocates change jobs, priorities shift, and customer enthusiasm naturally evolves over time. Maintaining a healthy advocacy community requires constant replenishment.
Second, they keep information current. Customer stories, product deployments, business outcomes, and willingness to participate all change. Outdated advocacy data quickly becomes unreliable.
Third, they measure and report value. Advocacy programs must demonstrate their contribution to business outcomes such as customer acquisition, retention, and expansion.
Beyond maintaining records, the advocacy team actively shapes the composition of the database to align with company growth objectives. This is essential if the program is to be seen by executives as a strategic lever vs. a low-level function an intern can run.
If the company’s strategic direction includes expanding into healthcare, launching a new product, selling through a new channel, entering Asia, or targeting a specific buyer persona, the advocacy team ensures the advocate population evolves accordingly.
In many ways, they function as portfolio managers for one of the company's most valuable assets: customer credibility.
Most organizations initially think of advocacy as a sales resource.
Sales certainly benefits from customer references, but advocacy creates value far beyond the sales organization.
The common thread is credibility.
Advocates provide something no marketing budget can purchase directly: authentic proof from real customers.
Most mature advocacy programs include additional components that extend value for both advocates and the business.
These activities are connected mechanisms that strengthen relationships, increase engagement, and create additional opportunities for customers to contribute.
Together, they help transform advocacy from a transactional activity into an ongoing customer experience.
The ultimate purpose of customer advocacy is not activity.
It is business impact.
In Summary
Advocates are valuable assets. The advocacy team's job is to make sure those assets are available when needed, protected from burnout, and aligned with the organization's most important priorities.
When done well, customer advocacy transforms customer success into measurable business value. It is an enterprise capability built on trusted relationships, reliable data, and authentic customer voices.
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