Joshua Horwitz

No two customer reference programs are created equal.  Each is defined by the type of business and the customers served.  Let go of expectations.  Spend some extra time to understand your customer’s needs and where they spend their time, marry that with your unique knowledge of your own business, and you will come away with the most effective reference strategy for your organization.

If you work in a fast paced technology driven industry that derives information from sources such as webinars, YouTube and other online sources think about how to make those references as high profile and impactful as possible.  Focus your energy on technology and work with your marquis reference customers to develop excellent presentations using web technologies and video testimonials.

If you work in a smaller niche industry where buying decisions rely heavily on personal peer interactions, concentrate your reference efforts on direct phone calls and other live discussions such as...

We believe in and promote the value of efficiency.  Be efficient in any work you do and you are guaranteed to go farther, faster. 

There are many benefits to a well defined customer reference program.  Whether your program is managed with spreadsheets or has the advantage of a technology platform, one of the most obvious benefits is the efficiency it brings to sales and marketing. 

Folks often ask us how to get more reference customers, so we dedicated a chapter to that in the Customer Reference Handbook.  In this post we wanted to highlight the importance of being efficient with each of those customer references.  So, take a look at your list – are you getting the most mileage out of each of them?  You may be able to get more by simply finding ways to repurpose, recycle and republish existing content...

It’s January and the New Year brings renewed energy, sales and marketing objectives, and of course, budgets.  If one of your goals in 2011 is to create or enhance a customer reference program it will be critical to demonstrate why precious dollars should be allocated to this effort rather than some other sales or marketing initiative.

Even though sales people and senior executives generally understand that there is value in customer references, they often cannot quantify the financial return.  So by demonstrating the ROI that a customer reference program brings, you will be able to justify the value and build a better and more productive program right from the start.

To avoid initial doubt your team members, sales organization and most importantly executive management may have about a program they are unfamiliar with it will be important to be strategic in...

Clearly we believe the former is the way to go.  Yet so many companies out there continue to struggle with the reactive approach to customer reference management.  Waiting for reference requests to come in before seeking out customers to speak with works occasionally.  However, we are certain that in almost all cases a proactive approach yields better results.  Let’s take a look at both scenarios:

Reactive approach: In this scenario the function of customer reference management generally falls under a marketing group or perhaps sales operations, but often it is just one small subset of the group’s responsibilities.  As a result, it often falls low on the list of priorities and may even be inconsequential when it comes to performance reviews.  When a reference request comes in, it is handled by using whatever tools are at...