
Had enough of customer marketing program management by spreadsheets yet?

ReferenceEdge
ReferenceEdge is a comprehensive customer marketing solution. Each component addresses a specific program pain point such as recruiting, data maintenance, requests, customer rewards and metrics. For marketers, searching and requesting advocates for event speakers, reviews, social media, and testimonial videos is easy and fast. For sellers, ReferenceEdge is built to provide every form of social proof needed at each stage of the buyer’s journey, from customer content to reference accounts and contacts. The value of a program is commonly measured by revenue influenced, and the ability to correlate advocate us to closed-won opportunities is baked into the system, and one of the KPIs included in our report package.
Why is a native Salesforce app superior?
If your company has invested in Salesforce CRM as the single source of truth, ReferenceEdge is the standard in the customer marketing community. A native application is installed in your Salesforce environment not merely integrated to it, like a plug-in. Native apps take full advantage of the Salesforce platform, provide UI consistency, real-time (not synced) data, workflows and much, much more. They also undergo extensive security reviews by Salesforce.com.

REFERENCEEDGE FEATURES AND BENEFITS
Maximize User Adoption
For anyone who champions new technology for a department or a company, this is where the rubber meets the road. We get it. It comes down to 1) executive support, 2) awareness, 3) education and 4) data quality.
Change Management
Technology is great, but don’t forget who’s using it. Anytime people are asked to change the way they’ve done things, forever, they need help getting from current state to future state. We’ve created the Change Management Playbook, an enabling framework for managing the people side of change. Playbook components are woven into our implementation methodology ensuring your program has the organization support required for success.
Product Features
- Relevant reference resources are suggested from the opportunity
- Help assistants on every ReferenceEdge page
- ReferenceEdge is designed to look, feel and behave like Salesforce, familiar from day one.
- Data update automation ensures accurate and complete search results
Did we mention fun? ReferenceEdge includes a user rewards feature to accelerate and sustain user adoption.


Identify References & Build Your Database
A solid base along with a steady flow of new customer advocates is the lifeblood of any program. ReferenceEdge has 4 automation features to support your recruiting needs:
- Nominations – Any ReferenceEdge user can nominate a customer as an advocate
- Reference Lead Finder – Automated follow up on recently closed/won opportunities to assess referenceability
- Reference Prospector – Build a prospect list, and launch an internal campaign to gauge account referenceability
- Profile Update Minder – Designed to automate the routine review/updating of reference profiles, new advocate candidates may be brought to your attention as part of the process
Additionally, you use your marketing automation tool, such as Marketo or Eloqua, to create recruiting campaigns and automate the creation of nominations or reference profiles in ReferenceEdge from responses.

Centralize Reference Knowledge
Keep track of who is considered an advocate, current status and for which advocate activities they are available, all within Salesforce CRM, your company’s single source of truth.
The basis of any customer marketing program or practice is knowing your advocate customers. ReferenceEdge lets you tag accounts and contacts as program members, activate or deactivate their status with a click, or business process automation leveraging customer success insights, and tag records with the metadata―such as industry, use cases, product, personna―that users depend on to find relevant and up-to-date advocate.


Search References using Filters & Keywords
Searching spreadsheets is so cumbersome, and limited. Give users a powerful, easy‐to‐use tool for finding the best references for their sales opportunity or marketing needs. We’ve expanded and fine‐tuned search to meet the unique needs of reference searches for accounts, contacts, and customer content, leveraging Salesforce CRM’s powerful search engine. Filter by industry, product, region, etc., and/or enter keywords. Tag contacts with advocate activities such as event speaking, reviews, press releases, reference calls, quotes, site visits, product betas―whatever is relevant to your stakeholders.

Automate Reference Call Coordination
Connecting an advocate reference customer and buyer demands that a salesperson act like a border collie: bouncing between the two parties, identifying availability, staying on top of the process. It is both time consuming, and time-sensitive—hitting quota may depend on it! ReferenceEdge includes the Calendar Coordinator™ feature that takes the task and runs with it while the salesperson can keep selling.


Automate Reference Requests
Accelerate, track and manage what is often a big drain on Sales productivity: managing customer reference requests. ReferenceEdge alone offers scalable peer-to-peer request routing and process management initiated from within Salesforce, or Slack, using our ReferenceBot app.

Close the Loop
Wouldn’t you love to have the time to follow up with the requester of an advocate activity to see how the call, speaking opportunity, etc., went? But that requires those rare commodities: bandwidth, and the right timing. No worries, ReferenceEdge seeks feedback following an advocate use so you know whether a) it didn’t/won’t happen, b) it’ll happen, but on a later date, c) it went well, or d) it didn’t go well. Imagine all the ways you can make use of these insights.


Reward Customers & ReferenceEdge Users
Reward points can be earned for completing activities. For customers those might include reference calls, webinars, and case studies.
For ReferenceEdge users, points can be earned for nominating advocate candidates, assisting with arranging a reference activity or periodically updating reference profile information for an account they own. Salesforce leaderboards keep all ReferenceEdge users aware of their accrued points relative to their peers, stoking a little healthy competition. Motivate and make reference-related activities fun and rewarding to accelerate and maintain adoption.
Accrued points may be redeemed however you decide: cash, prizes, event attendance or services.

Capture Win/Loss Insights
Data Collector is a flexible feature that can be used to gather valuable data related to opportunities both won and lost. But that’s not all. It can be used to capture post project or engagement insights. Configurable survey forms can be sent to users at the perfect time, as defined by you. Data is collected in a database for analysis, and it can also become searchable content within the reference search page.


Advocate Customer Data Maintenance
Customer reference profile information such as a customer’s activity preferences, use limits, and subject matter expertise has a shelf life. Whose responsibility is it to remember to update the profile as relationship changes occur? Often no one owns it, officially. It gets done sporadically and reactively. Not good enough given that reference search depends on reliable data. The Profile Update Minder automation feature identifies profiles that haven’t been updated in a period of time you define, and automates the review and update process, engaging those closest to the account relationship be it CSMs, account managers or sales.

Manage & Share Customer Content
Sometimes referred to as sales enablement, customer videos, reviews, case studies, press releases, and quotes are easily tagged, and searched and shared with buyers. Extensive meta tagging in ReferenceEdge makes sure content is easy-to-find, which is the only way to realize a return on your content investment. Content is shared via microsites (landing pages) that capture click activity and visitor ratings, providing valuable and timely insights to sellers, and to content development managers.


Gain Security Peace of Mind
Salesforce native applications such as ReferenceEdge are hosted by Salesforce.com, boasting a world-class security infrastructure. Breathe easy on the topic of GDPR, CCPA and other data protection regulations. Your IT and data security colleagues will be pleased and relieved to know:
- ReferenceEdge, 100% Salesforce-native, is installed into your Salesforce environment
- No data is hosted outside of Salesforce
- No personally identifiable customer information leaves Salesforce
- Your Salesforce admin team controls all system access

Analyze Real-Time Program Metrics
Gain instant access to real‐time data on customer reference program membership, activities and impact on revenue. ReferenceEdge includes 50+ pre-built reports and 20+ dashboard charts covering the most common program activities and metrics. And because we leverage standard Salesforce reports and dashboard charts you can easily modify, clone or create brand new reports to fit your needs. Schedule reports to be run for yourself or management; get out of the disruptive report fulfillment business.


Monitor Program Health
Program Health Monitor’s purpose is to help you align program goals with company growth goals, and continuously improve program performance. Set discrete program goals, track progress and compare to prior periods. Included are 26 quick start templates covering the most common program motions such as nominations, reference recruiting, requests, and reference searches. Set update notifications at whatever frequency you like so you always have a pulse on the program and adapt to changing conditions.

Prevent Reference Fatigue
Keep track of how customers are being used, how often and for what so you don’t wear out your welcome. Set limits on the number of times in a given time period a contact can be used for reference activities and ReferenceEdge will indicate when a limit has been reached, so important for those oft-requested marquee accounts.


Mobilize Your Program
Give your road warriors access to essential reference information in a familiar interface. Because ReferenceEdge is a native Salesforce app, reference search, requests, content sharing and other essential features, are accessible from within the Salesforce mobile app. Ensuring access to reference functionality at the right time yields higher usage, and therefore stronger program results.

Manage Data Imports & Exports
ReferenceEdge DM (data manager) is part of ReferenceEdge and designed for importing and exporting larger sets of data to and from ReferenceEdge objects. Imagine you just returned from your user conference and recruited 150 new customer references. DM makes quick work of converting that data to new nomination records, or searchable reference profiles. Best of all: RefEdge DM is a tool for ReferenceEdge administrators. No Salesforce administrator, or administrator permissions required.


Integrate with Related Technologies
ReferenceEdge lives on the Salesforce platform: part of the Salesforce ecosystem by design. Connectivity to key sales, customer success, and complementary customer marketing solutions is essential to the strategic value of the customer reference program. Native Salesforce applications are easily integrated, and SaaS applications outside Salesforce leverage the robust Salesforce API. ReferenceEdge offers integrations to Slack, Influitive, Gainsight, and TechValidate by SurveyMonkey.