#general

Hi all! 👋 - I’m looking for advice on referral programs.

My team recently launched a referral initiative aimed at incentivizing existing customers to refer new clients. So far, we’ve targeted different user cohorts via email and in-app messaging, directing them to a landing page where they can nominate a referral through a form.

We’re now entering V2 of the program and focusing on improving conversion rates by testing new audience segments. We're also surveying customers to better understand what types of incentives resonate most and how they prefer to make referrals.

Looking ahead, we’re exploring tools that could help us scale—ideally something that works well both in-app and on our website, and can generate easy-to-share referral links.

I'd love to hear from anyone who’s run a successful referral program—what’s worked for you? Any platforms or tactics you’d recommend? And has anyone found success generating referral links without using a dedicated tool? Appreciate any ideas, and happy to connect live if that’s easier. Thanks so much!

Our Community Manager was really intentional about it being a value space and not another place for us to ask customers for things

We did mostly non-ask! We almost never included asks in our sub group. It was predominantly encouraged networking, sharing exclusive perks/opportunities, fun stuff (contests, guest bloggers, AMA's), etc!

Putting my scrappy hat on:
• Could you use campaigns for the event and tie a speaker to the campaign? Use your usual campaign attribution, but now you know which speaker is tied to it.
• Set it up like an advocacy tag. We set up our references in SF to tag the account and individual used for the reference so we can see who gets used the most, who leads to more closed-won, etc. Wondering if you can do something similar? Tag an advocate to an opportunity, but the advocacy type is speaking.

@Irwin Hipsman @Rachel Ward any thoughts?

When a customer speaker speaks at an event, if the attendees' badges can be scanned at that session and then those leads evaluated, you can see which deals may have been influenced by their attending the session. I use UserEvidence to launch surveys after events and that really helps ID those who attended a session with a customer speaker. You can include a question on the survey that asks "what influenced your decision to select (or consider) name of company" and include the track session as one of the response options. @Evan Huck might have more insight here.

Is anyone else seeing a high number of reviews being rejected on Gartner due to credential issues? Any tips for getting more approved? I’ve asked if they can follow up with those reviewers, but it sounds like that request might just be treated as “feedback.”

about $60 per custom pop

Love it. We did this through a designer on etsy before funko starting offering it as a product. We made it an activation at our customer conference

I can’t wait to see yours.

I love Funko Pops, we have so many!! I am going to order one for my husband. You have no idea how much I love these!! @Kevin Lau look!!

Great call with @Amanda Peacock on ai.

A few notes:
• be very specific in your prompting
◦ What is the goal of your content?
◦ Who is the content for?
◦ How long should the content be?
• create ai assistants for different personas
• take it step by step
She will be generating her own notes from the recording and sharing them.

She mentioned doing a call about ai automations, so give a thumbs up if you are interested in that. 👍

I am obsessed with UserEvidence. Could not live without it. Have them send questions to me on DM.

Do you use UserEvidence? I have a member that would like to chat, let me know!!

Saw this on Gong Community, Has anyone tried something like Gongversations in your community?

Looks like it's a simple form for customers to raise their hand for 1:1 networking program that matches Gong customers based on shared business goals. It’s a way for users to ask questions, swap best practices, and sharpen their Gong skills through weekly 30-minute conversations.

Curious if anyone’s tried something like this or has experience running a peer-matching program through your community!

Advocacy “menus” or the items you offer advocates to participate in with your company?

I'm live for anyone that wants Open Discussion @channel

OK, I have to figure out how to allow comments in <#C04B57HN9D3|> @channel who wants to meet today? I would love to schedule topics for the next few weeks, so please lmk if you would like to share or suggest a topic!

For my CMA peeps, we just posted the first of five new roles that will be coming - just working through the paperwork to get the rest opened up. Find more in <#C04DPJ05XNV|>

Any suggestions for a topic for tomorrow’s call?

Anyone else built a dashboard to reduce dependence on CS for reference requests?

We’re exploring a way to reduce friction in our sales reference process. Right now, getting approvals (confirming details) from CS and CS leadership takes days (sometimes weeks), while Sales is pushing for urgent turnaround. To move faster, we’re considering going directly to customers (who have already opted in or have done references before). 🫠

To do this responsibly, we’re compiling a Customer Sales Reference Dashboard with key signals to help us assess if a customer is referenceable without waiting on CS. So far, we’re pulling in:
• Incident Reports – to avoid customers recently impacted by bugs or outages
• Upcoming Renewals – so we don’t reach out during sensitive deal cycles
• Churn Risk Trackers – to avoid customers flagged as at-risk
Has anyone else done something like this? What other signals or red flags do you track? Would love to know if:
• You’ve done this in your company
◦ You’ve gotten pushback from CS or Sales
Open to any tips, cautions, or learnings!