You gave a bad customer reference to an analyst! Are you serious?

This morning Jeremiah Owyang sent out a new “Web Strategy by Jeremiah”  newsletter. In it, he talks about his work on the upcoming Forrester Wave report. Read this part and I hope you’re as shocked as I am.

“Surprisingly, vendors don’t know their own customers that well, in more than one occasion; customers poorly rated the vendors that suggested they participate as this ideal customer reference. I also cross references with vendors to see how well they could anticipate what their customers said about them –in some cases, vendors were completely unaware of the challenges that clients were having –a very bad sign.”

I’m hoping that these companies don’t have a customer reference program. If they do, there needs to be a hard look at how their program is structured and if it’s really working. I’m sure I haven’t always given references that were 100% perfect, but I know that they were at least 90% perfect.

You absolutely have to know what your customers think of your company and product. If you don’t, you risk the chance of a reference opportunity blowing up in your face. And, if you’re giving a reference for an analyst (in my opinion one of the most critical references you can give) make sure the customer is happy, willing to be a reference and a great fit for the request.

To get a sense for how a customer feels about your company/product, try the 1-10 scale listed in my previous post. This will be a good initial measurement of their happiness.

It’s also important to do a few other things:

1 – Touch base with the sales person prior to a big reference (especially if you don’t have a great and open relationship with the customer). They’ll let you know if there were recent issues. Even if the sales person says the customer is happy…

2 – Never give a reference without first touching base with the customer. Make sure that they are happy, willing and able to give a reference. Some customers will be reluctant to tell their sales person that things aren’t great. There have been numerous situations I’ve come across in my almost 10 years of doing this where the sales person says that customer “A” is super happy with us. When I get on the phone or email the customer, they say now isn’t a good time because there area bunch of issues or they’re about to rip out our solution. You’ll also want to make sure that the customer will be able to take a call and that they won’t be on vacation or too busy.

3 – Touch base with your customer every now and then. Just because they were happy last year doesn’t mean they’ll necessary be happy this year.

4 – When speaking with a customer, ask what they feel comfortable speaking about. They might be very happy talking about VPNs but not so hot on anti-spam. In that case, although they give you a 10, you wouldn’t want to give them to an analyst who is writing an anti-spam report.

One thing that we sometimes forget is that there’s a difference between a transactional and a relational happiness level. I might be furious that my cell phone provider double charged me last month, but overall I’m really happy with them. Or, I might be happy with the way my cell phone provider dealt with a recent issue but I might hate their service. Because of this, it’s critical that you touch base with the customer prior to using them as a reference.

When giving references, especially for analysts, you can’t do too much up front work. You must know your customer. After all, isn’t that what having a customer reference or customer loyalty program is about?

The power of 1-10

At the end of a customer interview I always ask my contact how happy they are with their experience with my company. I ask them to take into account their sales, channel, product, support, everything experience. For the past few years I’ve been asking them to put it on a scale of 1-5 with 5 being the best. I do this so that I can get a decent understanding of where they stand because sometimes customers aren’t very talkative during the interview so I assume they’re not that happy – but I’m generally wrong.

After reading “The Ultimate Question” about this time last year I started using the scale from 1-10 as it’s more of a universal understanding. To most people it’s much easier to understand a 7 rather than a 3.5. When I went to the Net Promoter Certification class in July they emphasized this again. I thought it was still a good idea and didn’t think much else of it until three weeks ago.

Three weeks ago I had such severe back pain that I wasn’t able to move and was taken by ambulance to the ER at a local hospital. From the minute the paramedics arrived at my house they asked me to rate my pain from a 1-10. Hmmmmm. When I got to the hospital the admitting nurse asked me again to rate my pain from a 1-10 with 10 being the highest level of pain. Double hmmmm. Throughout my four night stay there (finished off with back surgery) I was constantly asked what level my pain was. When the nurse walked in to check on me and I was smiling, she new it was low, but still wanted a verbal number. “A three” I’d say. Later that day she’d come back to check on me and I could tell that she was embarrassed to ask what the pain was because she could see the tears roll down my face as I was gasping for air while hyperventilating due to the pain. I’d quietly mutter “12”.

So what does this say about the 1-10? It’s a universal ranking system that people in tech and non-tech fields understand. There’s no shady .5 scale and it’s easy to understand and give a number. Try it next time you’re out. Ask the person who says that they’re tired “How tired are you on a scale of 1-10 with 10 being you probably didn’t hear the last bit of this question because you fell asleep tired?” I double dog dare you.

P.S. I am now officially a Net Promoter® Certified Associate. Congratulations to the other 23 people who passed the exam this month. Way to go!