Are you taking advantage of one-to-many reference activities? One-to-one reference calls are the standard approach for connecting a buyer and a customer reference. They are more labor-intensive to arrange but offer the most personalized sharing of information between two parties. The high-touch reference approach generally works pretty well until demand exceeds supply, such as at the end of a quarter or year. Some companies will connect only deals meeting a certain revenue threshold with reference customers. Buyers who don’t meet that threshold may not kindly take the “You’re too small to warrant a reference call” implication, which isn’t a great way to begin a relationship. Fortunately, a few options are available to meet high demand periods yet still retain a one-to-one call’s dynamic, interactive quality:
The idea behind a limited group event is to have 2-4 prospects join a call with a single customer reference where all attendees take turns asking questions. This is the simplest form of one-to-many customer reference activities, and can be set up easily. A side benefit of these calls is that one prospect may pose a different set of questions than the other prospects. One could make the argument that it’s a more thorough due diligence opportunity. Of course, some questions may not be pertinent to other prospects, so that’s a potential downside. Nevertheless, during spikes in reference demand, group calls may offer the only feasible way to accommodate all prospects in the reference-check stage of the sales cycle.
Limited Group Events may have representation by the vendor, but more often than not are un-chaperoned.
It’s always important to track revenue influenced to any sales-related reference activities. In the case ofone-to-many activities the customer’s influence applies to each attending prospect opportunity. The reward for the customer may be higher given this additional influence, but generally is rewarded for a single activity. The same applies to Reference Forum customers.
Reference Forums are reference calls at scale. In the early days of Point of Reference, we used to plan, facilitate, record, and host edited recordings of Reference Forums as our one-to-many reference activity. Some had as many as 70 prospects in attendance. That sounds unwieldy for Q&A, but typically only 10-20% of attendees asked questions. The rest were simply happy to listen. Reference Forums were more planning- and labor-intensive but worked quite well to satisfy the due diligence requirements of prospect companies.
Here are some key considerations in offering Forums:
Feedback from attendees of one-to-many reference events is typically quite positive. The brain trust of the attendees leads to questions from a host of different perspectives. Comments such as “I wouldn’t have thought to ask some of those questions” are not unusual.
While we view group events as another “tool” in a program’s “toolbox,” we have worked with at least one company that has made group events the primary option for reference conversations. They gained commitment from customers to do monthly or quarterly calls, the dates scheduled in advance throughout the year. The schedule is published for sales, so they always knew what type of customer was available and when. It took a very particular type of program manager/team to go all-in on this model. But it worked for them.
However you choose to leverage these one-to-many reference options, they ensure you never have to “turn off the tap” on reference activities when demand exceeds conventional one-to-one reference calls.
Check out some of our own customer success stories on the Our Advocates page!
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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