“How do your customers measure customer reference program impact?”
We get that question all the time. The good news is that it isn’t hard or complicated. It can be time consuming if you don’t have the right technology, but not impossible. Before going further it’s important to separate measurement of activities vs. measurement of outcomes.
Activities that most customer reference programs measure—both snapshots as well as trends—include;
Any well-run operation will track metrics like these with a goal of continuous improvement: curtailing negative trends, and adapting to changing stakeholder and buyer needs.
These are important program metrics, but leadership isn’t measured on them. Leadership is measured on growth, profitability and cost efficiency.
The savvy customer reference program manager gets this and makes a point of understanding the company’s overarching goals, and aligns the program’s goals to those of the company’s. For example:
By connecting the dots between the program and strategic initiatives, the impact of customer reference program will be viewed in a very different light—indispensable rather than nice-to-have.
So you’ve done a good job of aligning your goals to those the CxO cares about. Now what? You measure the outcomes, the result of a well-run program:
Revenue influenced
The key to outcome measurement is being able to report against opportunities. If every request for a reference and every buyer’s engagement with customer content is associated to opportunities to begin with then this exercise is trivial. The alternative is to manually make a match between outcomes and opportunities.
Our technology, ReferenceEdge, makes quick work of this since all the program’s data resides in Salesforce, there are many activity and outcome reports included, and any additional reporting or dashboard charts are created using Salesforce’s extensive native capabilities.
However you produce and track your program’s key metrics, you can’t keep them a secret. Don’t assume that leadership knows the good work you’re doing, the contributions made by your program’s ability to leverage your best story tellers: your customer advocates. If Salesforce is your CRM system then share the most compelling dashboard charts on CxO dashboards. Being proactive and transparent will pay off and position the program as it should be: strategically essential. Contact us today to see how 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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