By Jan Young
What do I mean by a Customer Advocacy Umbrella? Don’t I mean to say Customer Advocacy Program?
Well, DO YOU have a Customer Advocacy Program? Probably not.
But, I bet you ask your customers to be a Sales reference for you. (POKE) And I bet you’ve asked some of your customers to speak on a panel or be a guest on a webinar for you. (POKE, POKE) And then, when they said great things about you, you probably followed up and asked them to do a review on G2, a case study, or write a blog post about how much they love your product? (POKE, POKE, POKE) And, since they have been such a great partner to you, you asked them to be a Sales reference, AGAIN…
Sound familiar?
Are you reaching out to the same folks over and over? Are your customers starting to let you know that they’re busy? Is it taking time away from your AE’s schedule, delaying deals? Are your CSMs having to stop what they’re doing to brainstorm potential Customers for the latest Marketing event? Have you started to “encourage” customer participation by promising them gift cards, a bottle of wine, or SWAG?
It makes sense that you’re reaching out to your customers for referrals.
B2B companies with referrals have a 70% higher conversion rate, and a 69% faster close time on sales.
Across all five generations, customers are at least 80% more likely to trust a referral over an ad.
Customers acquired through referrals have a 37% higher retention rate.
Referred customers’ LTV is 16% higher when compared to non-referred customers.
So why haven’t you established an Advocacy Program?
We don’t have the Marketing resources to manage an Advocacy Program.
We don’t have time to set up a Product Advisory Board.
We don’t have the budget for a Customer Advisory Board.
It’s a common misconception that you need to have a best-in-class Advocacy Program or do nothing. Well, NOT nothing. Because you’re POKING your customer instead. You’re delaying revenue and sales while you search for a reference. You’re spending valuable Marketing resource time on searching for panelists and speakers. You’re interrupting your CSM team’s time – taking it away from adoption, expansion, and renewals activities to reach out to your customers to be references and speakers.
But you COULD do something. You could think about what YOU WANT and then think about it from the CUSTOMER PERSPECTIVE.
Why would the customer want to:
Be a Sales reference?
Speak on a panel or be featured in a webinar?
Write a review on G2, participate in a case study, or write a blog post for you?
No, I mean really—WHY does a customer want to do these things? Which things might they WANT to do, and for which things might they need some encouragement?
Let’s say you have customers who want to build their brand or show their thought leadership in the industry. Make it easy for them! While you’re preparing the marketing and social media materials, share them with your customer so they can tweet or post on their LinkedIn feed. Feature your customer in your social media or newsletter. Follow up with your customer on the response people had to their insights. These are CUSTOMER BENEFITS that COST YOU NOTHING.
Companies with Advocacy Programs may also be sending gift cards, wine, or SWAG, but the difference is: It’s organized under the Umbrella of a program, and they set expectations of how to participate and be rewarded with benefits.
The mere act of communicating an Advocacy Program sets expectations on how to participate in the community. Your customers can anticipate providing thought leadership:
To potential customers (sales references)
To current customers (webinars and conference panels), and
To showcase their thought leadership and best-in-class programs (case studies, blogs)
That said, G2 reviews, if not spontaneous, are more likely to happen if you are rewarding gift cards. But if it’s their choice as part of a program, it will FEEL different to the customer.
I don’t know…
We don’t have the Marketing resources to manage an Advocacy Program.
We don’t have time to set up a Product Advisory Board.
We don’t have the budget for a Customer Advisory Board.
Ok. So DON’T do those things. You don’t need to have a lot of the time or a big budget to build an Advocacy Program. Take the things that you’re doing today, and put them under the UMBRELLA of an Advocacy Program. Then:
Take the time to think about what you need from the customer perspective.
Organize it into a program that you can communicate to the customer. Some ideas:
a. Maybe there’s a progression.
i. Once a customer provides 2 sales references they can be considered for a webinar.
ii. After 5 sales references they can be considered for a conference panel.
iii. After 3 sessions with a Product Manager providing feedback, they’re considered for a Product Advisory Board role.
b. Maybe there’s gamification, rewards, or both. If you have a community, customers can get badges for participating. Or customers can choose between gift cards and other gifts at different levels of participation.
c. Note! Some companies have rules about employee gifts, so check to see that you’re not creating problems. Also, think about how this program emulates your company culture. Maybe gamification doesn’t align with your culture–What’s a better way to position it?
3. Create materials so your Sales, Marketing, Customer Success, and Product teams understand and can communicate it.
4. Feature it as a benefit of purchasing your product and belonging to your community.
5. Track it and let your customers know their standing in your Advocacy Program.
a. Don’t get lazy about this. Tracking customer participation is key. If you don’t track it:
i. You’ll be stuck back in the world of wasting time searching for references and speakers because you can’t rely on the data in your CRM.
ii. Your customers won’t understand the benefits and won’t participate.
iii. Your program will fall apart and cease to be a program.
b. It’s not that hard to track, so you have no excuse! Just:
i. Add a couple of fields in your CRM.
ii. Explain the program to your Sales, Marketing, Customer Success, and Product teams.
iii. Explain how it benefits your teams (if they don’t immediately understand).
iv. Explain how it benefits your customers.
v. Identify and communicate: When your teams should mention to customers, How to follow up, and Where to update the information in the CRM.
After you and your customers see the benefits of an Advocacy Program, you can always iterate and add to it. There are even SaaS platforms to help you organize your Advocacy Program when you’re ready for it. (Does that surprise you in a world where there is a SaaS platform for seemingly everything?)
Yes, it takes a small amount of effort to think about your customer and decide how you want to create the initial Umbrella of your Advisory Program. But when you think about the time saved, how much you’ll improve your customers’ experience, and the potential gains of a customer base of referred customers… How can you justify not getting started on a Customer Advocacy Umbrella today?
The Success League is a customer success consulting firm that offers customer success evaluations that are a great way to see what is working well and what needs improvement. For more information on our consulting services and training classes, please see TheSuccessLeague.io
Jan Young - Jan is passionate about lifelong learning, demystifying technology, optimizing teams, processes, and systems, and building effective relationships and communities. Her experience has included working in Enterprise companies and Startups of various stages, and she has advised several founders and startups. She serves on the board of Gain, Grow, Retain as co-lead of the Voice of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion council, and is a Founding Community Lead for CS Insider for which she writes and curates a series called “Inclusive Innovation”, and was recognized as a 2021 Top 100 Customer Success Strategist for her work in the community. She holds a BA from UC Berkeley, and an MBA from Columbia University. In her free time, she enjoys wine tasting, hikes, and Pickleball.