#8-references

Good question!

I’m all for rewarding customers for their time, but if every reference call comes with a gift, it can start to feel transactional, not to mention the budget impact because we have so many references happening.

I prefer recognizing advocates more holistically. If a customer completes a certain number of reference calls in a year, we include them in our holiday gift send as a more meaningful thank-you.

And if they’re also participating in other asks, like reviews, speaking, or case studies, then definitely something more holistic makes sense.

Trying to balance showing appreciation without turning every interaction into a transaction. That said, always open to hearing everyone else’s strategies and ideas!

This is such great insight! I definitely hear where you're coming from. There are some people who staunchly believe there should be no reward for the transaction element. While I see that for sure, I also can't help but think about how they're taking time out of their day to sell on our behalf, especially knowing how busy everyone is. I like the balance you've struck! We have something similar. We started a rewards program last year where they get points for participating in certain acts of advocacy and then can trade those points in for swag/discounts etc. It feels like a good middle ground to me because some people never choose to cash in their points, and others have come out of the woodwork to participate because they want the swag and like the competition. So it's definitely given me some new advocates I didn't know about previously.

I like this! The points system to capture all advocacy tasks and also letting them choose what they want (swag/gift card) etc. Plus one to being able to surface new champions

Good insight! I do like rewarding customers for their time for references. At the end of the day the reward is just a fraction of the revenue they are helping to bring in. I never position it as a reason to do the reference, but more as a thank you for your time.

I've done the point system thing through Influitive, and found that some ppl were into it, some were not. It was sometimes a challenge to get the type of folks we really needed for references (decision makers) to register for the program, which ended up being mostly power users.

Yes, I'm definitely experiencing that, as well! We have a range of personas needed for references so I still have pretty good penetration, but some of the higher level DMs aren't into it at all. Have to go more speaking opportunities and cab routes with them