#general

I'm currently working through this, if you want to chat!

How I did it previously is I did an enablement session on Advocacy in general, the process I put in place, and the importance of following the process.

Do you know this person well? Do they know the process that's in place and why it's in place?

If so, could just do a gentle correction: "Hey, so-and-so. Noticed you reached out to XYZ Customer directly for a speaking request. Happy to help you coordinate that—our customer marketing team is here for ABC. We ask that teams filter requests like this through our team to make sure we're streamlining our asks to customers. As I'm sure you can imagine, there are a lot of people who want to connect with our customers! Our goal is to help you get what you need while ensuring we don't inundate specific customers with requests. Looking forward to partnering with you on this request & future ones!" 🙂

I feel like this is the crux of Customer Marketing and Advocacy work. Always have to be gently enabling and educating colleagues! I would love a magic wand for sales reference calls in particular 🥲

Thanks ladies!! So helpful. And so very true, it’s like you have to constantly remind folks without sounding like a broken record 🫠

I personally find leading with the impact to the customer or the customer experience in general has been helpful in continually enabling other teams. That said, it all really depends on your company culture! But, if nothing else, there's a whole slew of folks here to commiserate with 😂

I just learned this, but you can create a slackbot that responds with a automated custom message when someone posts something that uses a phrase you are tracking. for example if someone posts "I need a customer reference" the bot will automatically pick it up and respond with "Great here is the process"

Which works SO well, as long as you're in the channels where those conversations are happening. I've found a lot of roadblocks in getting access to Sales channels at different orgs! Another thing that truly does seem to work with Sales in particular is highlighting the speed at which your CMA org can get a reference (and get the call going) compared to the "black market". When it comes to larger marketing requests, like event speakers, etc. This one is so much trickier because I often find c-suite and leadership to be the biggest culprits of skirting process and they're the hardest to redirect. I do find building good rapport with their admin/support teams to be generally helpful to getting processes followed though!

^^ this!! i'm in constant roadshow mode because there are always news sales people, CSMs, etc and they don't always know what customer marketing is or how we can help them. it can feel like an uphill battle but i also regularly align with the leaders of the teams to make sure it feels like a partnership and remind them that I'm here to support their efforts, not to get in the way of their own conversations