Customer Reference Programs

My six year old niece started her first swim lessons this week. Monday she was nervous and thought about bailing out of lessons – little did she know that her granny was going to make her go in the water if she liked it or not. After 30 minutes of class with two other little kids and a whole lot of attention by the instructor, she was able to blow bubbles and get ¾ of her face in the water.

Tuesday she was much braver. She swam 42 loops (in the baby pool) with her arm bands on and loved it. She was really getting the hang of it yet still she wouldn’t put her face completely in the water – it was a bit too scary.

Wednesday I told her I’d give her $1 if she put her whole face in and low and behold, I’m $1 poorer today. She also was able to swim with the kickboard and holding on to the instructor. She went as far as the middle of the pool.

Today, Thursday, she was swimming by herself in the big pool. The instructor would stand in the middle of the big pool and she’d kickboard out to him. When she got to him, he’d pick her up and throw her back in the pool and she’d be completely under water. She’d pop back up, swim to the side and then head out back to him where he would throw her again to be completely submerged in water. She loved it!

Think of your references the same way. Sometimes your contact will not have done one before and might need some hand holding or guidance. Take baby steps with them and once they feel comfortable working with you on a press release and/or case study, introduce them to the idea of speaking with the press and then maybe an analyst or a video testimonial. They might even look to their PR or Legal department to get approval and might get shot down. That’s okay, my niece didn’t learn to swim or stick her head completely under water in a day but by the time she’s done with her lessons next week she’ll be a pro!

I haven’t found a ton of resources on the Internet regarding customer references but here are some sites and resources that can be helpful.

Net Promoter – These guys are pretty much the end all and be all of customer loyalty at this point. They are popping up all over the place from small companies to large Fortune 50 companies. They’re basic concept is that you have to have loyal customers and one way to find that is through the Net Promoter Score. I’ve read their book “The Ultimate Question” and found it pretty useful and it’s much cheaper than attending one of their 3 day seminars! With that said, I’d still love to attend one of their conferences which are held internationally in cities like London, Miami and San Francisco. At the end of the conference you can take a test and be Net Promoter certified.

Boulder Logic – This is an online tool for managing your references but if you don’t have the money or the need for the tool, the company sends out a newsletter every now and then about hot reference topics. A recent one was “Talking With Your Executives”. To sign up for the newsletter, visit this page. Boulder Logic also holds Webinars which are useful for the new customer reference professional.

I haven’t used the online tool but have gone through a few demos with them. I think it’s a great resource and beats the Excel document I use, but no company I have been with has been willing to pay for the tool or was ready to use it.

References Online – Like Boulder Logic, these guys offer an online reference tool. It’s been a few years since I’ve spoken to anyone there but I remember the tool was useful and very similar to the Boulder Logic tool.

Phelon Group – These guys focus on customer reference programs rather than the tools for managing the program. They can help you set up a program from scratch or help you refine your program. I have also found these guys very intelligent and understand the wants and needs of reference programs and what the professional has to do. They have a blog but it hasn’t been updated in quite a while. In fact, nothing on their site has been updated this year so this might be an old resource. Either way, there’s still a lot of good information on the site.

I haven’t done anything with them in about a year but they did have a reference professional seminar called the “Customer Reference Forum” that lasted a few days and I thought it was great – mostly because at that time I realized that there were other people out there that doing references too.

Customer Reference Forum and Point-of-reference are also another location for research. These sites are much more like the Phelon Group with information and they also hold events.

I let the customer know that I’ll be sending him an American Express gift card so that he can replace the broken glass and he’s happy. Whew!

It’s very easy to run a customer reference program sitting at your desk, writing emails and talking on the phone.

When given the opportunity to meet your customers face to face – don’t even hesitate. Just do it - even if it’s a quick hello and not a lunch or dinner meeting. Like with many other things in life, meeting someone face to face changes the relationship. It literally puts a face to the person you’ve been talking to.

I recently had the opportunity to meet a Fortune 500 customer of my company’s for an analyst briefing. In the end, I spent three hours getting to and from the meeting for what took a total of 20 minutes face to face with the customer. Sounds like a huge waste of time but now I am 100% confident that when I call that customer or email him, he’ll get back to me in minutes. In fact, I sent him an email earlier this week asking him for a phone interview so that I could write a press release on his company being a customer of my company. Within 2 minutes (120 seconds – not even enough time for me to walk to the water cooler and fill up my water bottle) he wrote back and said yes. Did I mention that he’s a director at a Fortune 500 company? That is extremely impressive. And, I have to give all the credit to the fact that I met him face to face a few weeks ago. Otherwise, what’s going to separate me from the hundreds of other emails he gets on a daily basis?

So, even if it takes all day to meet a customer which will end up being a 10 minute meeting…DO IT! The pros far outweigh the cons. The three hours I spent traveling will ultimately be made up in time I won’t have to spend chasing him later on for an interview or approvals. He knows my name and my face.

With the risk of sounding cheesy…

Roundtrip train ticket to meet customer = $15.00
Giving up half a day of work at the office = $400
Having direct access to a customer and a personal relationship with them = priceless!