Program Perception is the key to Customer Reference Programs

Steve Ellis talks about the major roadblocks in implementing a reference program within the Enterprise. I agree with his over arching theme - that organizations lack commitment to reference programs - and I'd suggest one way to help resolve this is to change the perception of reference programs.

A lot of the problems that I see are due to the Sales force's perception of references as a favour. If it's seen as a favour by the Sales force then it's also going to be seen as a favour by the customer, and they're going to be reticent to do you a favour unless they get something back (such as a price break).

The key is to reinvent the reference program so that it provides real value to your customers (and that doesn't just mean price breaks). Once you do this the Sales force will be keen to jump on board, moreover, if you do it well then your customers will be approaching your Sales force to be included.

Of course, the other thing to consider - as Jeremiah points out - is that in the Web 2.0 world, reference programs will be about opening up your customers views - good an bad - and listening to them, rather than trying to control them. The companies that get that right will really reap the benefit.

References aren't all good

I've heard a lot of concern from marketers about "the dangers" of exposing negative customer comments as well as positive ones. This concern is obviously heightened in today's social media age. However I think that the approach of encouraging an open conversation between customers has long been recognized by sales people.

Last week I interviewed a sales rep as part of a consulting engagement with a hi-tech company. During the interview he mentioned a sale that he'd won by asking a current customer to have a direct call with his prospect. This is nothing new, and isn't unusual at all, except this was a competitive bid against another hi-tech vendor. The competitor also arranged a reference call. However, the sales rep at the competitor insisted on sitting in on the call! My interviewee was convinced that his openness to letting his customer discuss their product, warts and all, contributed to him winning the deal.

Customer Advocacy and community marketing

One of the areas that I work on is customer advocacy. In particular, Metia (the company that I work for) designs, implements and manages customer advocacy programs for a number of high-profile tech companies.

We've recently been working with Bill at the Customer Reference Forum and Jeremiah over at PodTech, talking about customer advocacy 2.0 (that's pretty rich really, cause most people didn't know there was a CA 1.0).

I've long thought that customer advocacy is just one end point of the word of mouth marketing activities that have become so popular today. In particular, customer references are asking to be integrated with social media. If one of your customers is blogging positively about you, then why aren't you aware of it, or asking them if they'll help you in other ways? My gut feeling is that most reference professionals don't know what's being blogged about them. The "community managers" within the company might be keeping on top of the blogs, but I haven't seen much communication going on between the community managers and the reference professionals. Perhaps I'm wrong? I'd love to hear that this is already happening.

Maybe the reference professionals are already hanging out with the community guys? Jeremiah's posted a question on his blog to see if this is true. I'm really interested in the results.

What is customer advocacy?

I've been doing some work with a tech company in silicon valley, helping them to review and improve their customer reference program. I've interviewed a number of people around the organization, and every person that I speak to has a different take on what constitutes a customer reference.

When I'm planning a new system, I use three different terms:

Customer Advocacy: A programmatic approach to using the positive experience of your customers to support your sales and marketing activities through references and evidence. In some programs, Customer Advocacy is also extended to deal with neutral and negative customers – aiming to convert neutrals into promoters, and negatives to neutrals.

Customer Reference: Using a customer's time to discuss the benefits that they gained from the product/service. This may include a visit from a prospective customer, a phone call, press interview, analyst call or conference appearance.

Customer Evidence: This is the recorded material that results from a customer agreeing to be a reference. This may include logo use, quote, case study, video, podcast etc.

Why do I separate them in this way? Mainly because references and evidence are typically managed by different groups of people. References are typically controlled by the sales organization, and evidence is typically owned by marketing (with the blessing of sales).

If you're producing a system to support your customer advocacy efforts you should start by definining which types of advocacy you want to manage.

Organic chocolate ice cream!

I was over at Google's mountain view campus on Friday, and got to experience their legendary food. It lived up to all expectations - even their vegetarian offerings were amazing. I particularly fell in love with their organic chocolate ice cream! I can see why their engineers would never want to go home.

Now this iLike

I've only just discovered this wonderful little plugin for iTunes and Windows Media Player called iLike. It posts your music playing history to a community site that you can then use to find new music, or simply see what your mates are listening to.

 If you're at all interested, my recent plays are all here.

Software as a Service or Software plus Service?

At the risk of contradicting myself, I think Ray Ozzie is onto something with the Software plus Service approach. 

One of the current issues with SaaS for desktop apps is the lack of support for disconnected users. I don't think it's any coincidence that Google apps doesn't have a PowerPoint equivalent yet - how many times have you made last minute changes to your presentation on the plane

"Software plus services" seems to be a sensible choice for desktop applications at this point in time. However, I suspect this will change once we have broadband connections from our aisle seats.

<update> There's an interesting announcement today from Corel, who seem to have already launched a hybrid software plus service application.