Are You a Change Junkie? Most people are not, and that should influence how you approach many aspects of your customer advocacy program.
We had a really terrific conversation this week with our Change Champion customer, Meagan McAlexander, from CentralSquare Technologies. The objective of these conversations was to capture the specific elements of Prosci’s change management model, ADKAR (Awareness, Desire, Knowledge, Ability and Reinforcement), that produced change success for advocacy program leaders, and then share those learnings with our community.
On the topic of Desire, addressing any obstacles that cause people to resist change, Meagan identified change overload as a significant culprit. We all feel the constant drumbeat of change in our personal and professional lives. Yes, the rate of change has been increasing with each passing year. Arguably, the magnitude of change is increasing as well.
How does this relate to change specific to customer advocacy programs? The largest stakeholder group of CMA programs by count are salespeople, followed by marketing and customer success. Each of these groups are bombarded by new processes, new technology, new work environments and new co-workers. There’s no way of avoiding it, it’s the new normal. Program leaders can’t change those macro conditions, but that doesn’t prohibit them from being a change management force.
What advocacy program leaders can do is manage change better than it’s being managed by other leaders in the organization. It’s a healthy competition, like the pursuit of mindshare in the form of customer engagement if you run any aspect or form of a community.
So much of competent change management begins with empathy. That can be said of pretty much every aspect of life. Putting yourself in the shoes of another gets to a level of understanding that circumvents wasted time and energy on actions and behaviors that raise defenses and objections. When we feel heard and understood so much can be accomplished. That is the basis for a good relationship. Good change management is a proven way to begin a beautiful working relationship!
If you’re introducing a new customer advocacy program to your organization, begin by meeting with samples of your stakeholder groups. Ask them questions that will help you understand how they, and their co-workers, will react to the changes you’re planning. Learn what information will be helpful to share, what past experiences—with initiatives involving change—were like; what worked and what was lacking. Anticipate, anticipate, anticipate! Recognize that your initiative is being judged, at least in part, by the successes or failures (more likely) of prior company initiatives that didn’t pan out. Studies show that over 70% of company initiatives fail due to poorly executed change management.
Change management is not a project, just as customer advocacy is not a project with a defined start and end. It is woven into everboarding, which we’ve written about previously. Program launches require broadly applied change management in terms of ADKAR to reach future state and prevent regression to the before times. But there will always be new hires and changes in the environment that will require micro-targeted application of the ADKAR principles. Training (i.e., Knowledge & Ability) may be lacking, for example. And then, people also just plain fall off the change wagon from time to time. Count on it, be vigilant.
Effective change management is crucial for the success of any initiative; customer advocacy programs are no exception. Program leaders must prioritize empathy and proactive stakeholder engagement to effectively manage the transition from the old way to the better way. By understanding and addressing the unique challenges and experiences of stakeholders, advocacy initiatives will thrive despite fluctuating environments. Be better than all those other failed initiatives littering the road behind you. For more resources on how to improve user adoption through effective change management, check out these podcasts.
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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