“How many customer references should I have in my program?” We routinely get this question from reference program managers, and the answer isn’t as cut and dry as one would guess. And it’s important to get it right, for these reasons.
Recruiting customers for your customer reference program requires effort in the form of clearly communicating the needs, cajoling relationship owners to nominate, vetting candidates, contacting nominees, and onboarding new members. Multiple stakeholder departments and personnel are involved. If relationship owners (e.g., customer success managers) are incentivized with cash or prizes—for quality nominations—the effort has hard costs too.
What’s the ultimate goal of all that activity? To assemble a pool of customer references that meet the needs of Sales, PR, events, digital, demand gen, and all the other stakeholders that rely on references to get their jobs done. Will just any reference customer do? Not just no, but hell no. Buyers have high expectations. They won’t settle for a client reference in a different industry, with a different use case, or even a different size organization. The customer reference database must be broad and deep enough to satisfy the reference needs that fuel the company’s specific growth goals.
When a program goal is to “increase the reference database by 100 references this year,” “have 25% of our customer base be referenceable,” or “grow our database by 20% this year”—with no connection to stakeholder demand—that goal setter is missing the point: to satisfy actual demand. Given that a program manager has a finite amount of bandwidth, and so do the co-workers asked to help identify and recruit reference candidates, this approach is simply wasteful.
When there’s always so much going on, it’s easy to lose track of the raison d’etre. One or more of the following factors causes a temporary loss of reason (“What are we doing this for again?”):
Some of your company’s growth strategy won’t translate to reference needs, but those will be the minority. If one of the goals is, for instance, to “increase Q3 revenue by 20% from mid-sized healthcare organizations in the Midwest region using the new cloud product,” you’ve got a good idea of the kind of reference requests to expect. Based on the relevant growth goals, start identifying the general categories of reference customers needed. You’ll refine these categories after completing steps 2 and 3.
The customer reference program must support the current pipeline of reference needs, as well as what will be required 60, 90, 120 days into the future. The current demand is in the data from the Sales team. Report on open opportunities and identify segments that’ll represent the bulk of reference needs based on estimated close dates. Look for patterns in the data. These could be industry, geography, product, specific channels, and of course, combinations of criteria.
For needs outside of Sales, consult with leaders of your stakeholder teams (PR, Social Media, Demand Gen, etc.). They’ll have their own objects and action plans. Some elements of these plans will require customer advocates, and a calendar to go with it. In some instances your colleagues will already have customer stories in mind (e.g., an email campaign featuring customer X, with a product Y story). There will also be opportunities for you to suggest ways to best leverage the customer references you know well. Again, look for patterns in the reference needs that emerge. Are there “stories” of a particular type that will be needed (partner success, integrations, cost savings)? What segments are most urgent (industry, product, use case, enterprise size)? What are the time frames for various reference needs? You’ll need these deadlines for new references to be of any use.
Once you’ve obtained the expressed or anticipated demand, compare those needs with the existing database. Assuming you have some pool of customer reference data to start with, you’ll need to assess whether or not the data has been maintained and how confident you are in its accuracy. There is some amount of churn within any customer reference database. Before you finalize your gap analysis, review existing data and remove any accounts/contacts that are no longer referenceable.
Consider the volume of anticipated Sales requests. How many reference customers are typically needed for each opportunity? How often can you use any given reference contact? Knowing your company’s Sales process in the context of customer references is essential to arrive at an accurate estimate.
The same exercise is needed to evaluate non-Sales reference needs. Perhaps the event team will need more VPs and CxOs for virtual events, or analyst relations is going to need 15 customers for the Forrester Wave, with specific criterion, in 30 days. Is the program prepared to meet those needs?
This data analysis will save you lots of time down the road, ensuring you build your reference database efficiently on the right criteria. Remember, you have limited time and can’t afford to cultivate reference customers no one needs. Start prioritizing what gaps you need to fill first. Not all gaps are of equal importance. After addressing the top priorities, you can move down the list.
There are many decisions to be made concerning the best ways to fill your data gaps. Here are a few considerations:
Whatever means you choose to use for your recruiting effort, be sure to communicate what you’re looking for precisely in the interest of both time and effort expended by all parties and because there’s a customer relationship aspect to consider. Imagine you’re the customer. Your CSM proposes membership in the program, explains the benefits (whatever they may be), and gets you excited to participate. Then, because your customer story isn’t in-demand (on the priority list), you don’t get a request in 3 months, 6 months, maybe ever. That’s not the message you want to send to a valued customer.
Each customer reference program manager defines a process for onboarding a new customer into the program. Some strive to meet with each new member and walk them through the various opportunities, time commitments and benefits. A live conversation establishes a direct relationship, which can pay dividends down the road. Direct connection is a good way to ensure the customer’s reference profile is complete and accurate. You might even discover they’ll do more reference activity types that you had been led to anticipate. Score! Regardless, this is the labor-intensive approach, and it may simply be impossible. At the other end of the spectrum is providing a way for customers to self-nominate (e.g., email campaign + web form). Any customer who “self-nominates” is automatically accepted into the program, and that’s the extent of the onboarding “process.” Whatever way you go, be sure to document your process and follow it consistently so that as your company grows, the program can scale accordingly.
Hopefully, after reading this post, you understand why an arbitrary count or percent growth goal picked out of thin air is meaningless. Goals of this sort will waste valuable time and energy, and in the end you’ll be in no better position to support your company’s reference needs than before. This aspect of running a program is more scientific than many imagine. Educate your manager and executive sponsors on the right way to answer the question, “How many is enough?” It is important for stakeholders to understand that it isn’t purely a number but having customers with the matching attributes. We wish you great success on your mission to have the right reference for each request and showing your executive team what a real reference program can do! Let us know if we can help.
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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