#general

this is about referrals but I used it to inspire an ROI calculation about reference calls

More reference calls = higher win rate

Example: if reference calls drive 10 more closed-won deals in a year with $30k ACV, that's $300k in revenue

@Emily Smith might have something. @Vera Flores might, and @Allison Hughes works for ReferenceEdge so they may have something.

@Ann Crilley We asked about this in our 2024 customer story report. https://www.upliftcontent.com/blog/saas-marketing-case-studies/#customer_advocacy

@Amanda Schulte I have a process of having a request form in our project management tool and I added a "reference program" checkbox to our customer contact records so I can pull a report of all of our reference customers. I will say that I highly recommend trying to get approval for a tool that can help with reference management; otherwise, it can a real challenge to deliver references to sales in a timely manner. I can share my research deck on some of the vendors out there. We were going to go with ReferenceEdge but found it is not flexible enough for us so we've been considering SlapFive, Deeto, Base, and Champion.

I recently chose Deeto and went live a couple weeks ago, happy to share more about our thinking here and how it's going so far

I am very much hoping to set it all up in Salesforce and be self-serve to the reps. As a team of one, I can't be a match maker. But, TBD on if that can actually happen.

@Ann Crilley @Leslie Barrett has a post about this on CMAsoulmate, you should check it out. cmasoulmate.substack.com

@Amanda Schulte I run a pretty fast and high volume reference program that was built from scratch so I'm more than happy to jump on a call and walk through it with you if you'd like!

When it comes to internal buy in, I'm typically using internal numbers and sharing that up with leadership. Close rate for deals w references, how many references our advocates have completed, the CMRR they contributed to by month/quarter/FY

@Amanda Schulte I just launched my built-from-scratch reference program in January, and would be happy to chat through my process! I have less of a proven-value perspective, since it's still so new, but I can share how I went about building the program/who was involved/how we added users, etc.

@Ann Crilley I use ReferenceEdge which is native to SFDC, and it's pretty much self-serve. I'm only a few months in but I really like it so far. All requests are sent to our account owners (customer experience team) for approval. The only time I step in is when a Sales rep can't find a match. But if you have enough references, then you should be good to go.

I'm doing the same thing (building from scratch) with a lot of customers so scale is an issue. I'd love to jump on a call with anyone willing to chat! ☺️

@Perri Chaikof can you share a bit more about how you like Deeto?

I chose Deeto because it had all the functionality I needed for reference call scheduling + reporting, plus I use it as my customer advocacy CRM and central hub for all my customer proof. When customers sign up to be an advocate, they're prompted to provide a quote, user story, etc. and I've captured a ton of new social proof that way. Happy to chat further if anyone wants to DM me

Thank you, that is super helpful. I really appreciate it.