Grace Corey's Profile
Grace Corey
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#8-references - April 29, 2025 at 08:23 PM
<@U081G6SEAGM> Our AEs are typically the ones setting up the reference calls for the prospect and our company calls are set up to auto-record with Gong unless we remove it from the call. Having the AE set up the call is helpful because (1) I see exactly when the call is scheduled and happens and (2) if the AE records the call, I can access the recording.
#7-case-studies-stories - April 17, 2025 at 09:00 PM
Happy almost Friday, CMA friends! I'm revamping our customer case study interview guide/template and I would love to hear some of your favorite customer interview questions that generate better stories + quotes. Our previous model is very product focused and I want to shift more towards celebrating the customer + their innovation, rather than promoting our products.
@Katlin Hess inspired me
#reviews - April 17, 2025 at 01:59 PM
@Cara Peterson I've run two models for CSMs:
1. Review Sprint (less optimal) - Basically ask your customers ASAP to generate as many reviews as possible. This is my less preferred approach because it makes the review ask feel like something "extra" that we're asking CSMs to do for a short-term success/reward, rather than having customer review asks integrated into certain touchpoints/triggers along the customer journey.
2. Integrated Review Generation - CSMs are enabled on how to integrate customer review asks across the customer journey. With this model, we've laid out optimal times to ask customers for reviews: after a successful launch, following EBRs, when they've received positive feedback, after our flagship conference, etc. I like this approach better, because I want to enable CSMs to understand the right times to ask for reviews so it becomes second nature and not a reactive sprint every year before a big report comes out. I still shoutout our CSMs that generate reviews and they receive praise and we do quarterly leaderboards, but it's more of an "always-on" approach.
#reviews - April 16, 2025 at 01:45 PM
At my last company, I was focused on generating reviews for Gartner Peer Insights and my primary KPI was # of reviews in the last 12 months, which would impact our ranking in the Magic Quadrant report. I would also report out on how many reviews we were generating vs. our competitors, however leadership's primary focus was on our MQ placement so they just wanted to see as many 5-star reviews as possible. I also kept a leaderboard of CSMs who generated the most reviews and would report this out to our CS VP. Ideally all CSMs would generate 3-5 reviews during a 4-week review sprint.
At my current company, I'm focused on G2 reviews and my primary KPIs are:
1. # of reviews generated per quarter
2. # of reports + badges included/received per each seasonal report
3. Rankings in seasonal reports (did we improve our ranking in X Category or lose our spot in Y Category?)
4. # of Categories where we are listed as "Grid Leader"
There hasn't been a designated G2 program lead in a while, so I am trying to revamp our profile + rankings and get CSMs used to asking their customers for reviews in a regular cadence.
#general - April 14, 2025 at 04:37 PM
#general - April 11, 2025 at 04:54 PM
Love this topic!! Either date works ✅
#8-references - April 09, 2025 at 07:17 PM
I am working on a performance self-review, so this is timely 🙂 I just built our new reference process in October 2024, so metrics are a bit limited, but right now I am reporting out:
• Revenue influenced = main KPI
◦ Closed revenue vs. still in pipeline
◦ Conversion rate post-reference call
◦ Average deal size (compared to no ref. call)
• # of requests fulfilled per quarter (ideally more AEs are now using the formal process, increasing the # of requests quarter over quarter)
• # of customers identified as advocates on our "Reference Roster"
◦ # of unique customers participating in reference calls
◦ Ideally growing our # of advocates YoY
Our sales cycles are typically a bit longer, so turnaround time is typically 3-5 days, but can vary and seems to be less important currently.
#8-references - April 04, 2025 at 03:18 PM
@Amanda Peacock Happy to connect and chat more anytime! The proof bot was built from scratch in our internal GPT system and has very specific prompting/instructions + the customer proof library/spreadsheet uploaded in it's knowledge base. It was a lot of trial + error on the prompting + instructions side to ensure minimal hallucinations and cite where each proof point is coming from (by sharing the case study URLs in responses).
#8-references - April 04, 2025 at 01:45 PM
Thank you @Jeanne Talbot 😅 I'm a team of one right now, so I am trying to make a lot of things self-service for GTM teams and AI is a huge helper!
#8-references - April 04, 2025 at 01:02 PM
I have a few new things I've been trying for customer references + customer proof in general:
• We have some Gong recordings of reference calls and I will upload the transcript into our company's internal/secure chatbot/GPT to pull out the reference questions asked by the prospect and summarize their main concerns and responses to the reference customer's responses. This helps me (1) promote more relevant content with our Sales team to share with prospects based on actual prospect data/calls (2) create new content that answers some FAQs and (3) see where there are gaps in how we are marketing new solutions/products and prospect understanding of those solutions.
• Recently I used our internal chat bot to scan every single case study we have publicly available and pull customer proof points and quotes from the case studies. I then uploaded these proofpoints into a master "Customer Proof Library" that Sales and other GTM teams will be able to use and find referenceable customer quotes and stats easily. A lot of times, our Sales team just needs a quote or testimonial or story rather than a live reference call, so I am hoping that this helps lessen the live call burden on our customers moving forward.
• And what I'm most excited about is a custom bot that I built this week (still using our internal chatbot, so everything is secure) that has the Customer Proof Library uploaded in its knowledge bank. GTM teams will be able to use this custom bot to ask for specific proof points or customer testimonials and receive suggested customer evidence almost instantly! Again, hopefully this will make customer proof more accessible and lessen the number of live reference calls we need to do (especially with prospects early in the sales cycle!)
#general - April 04, 2025 at 12:44 PM
We track customer reference calls in Salesforce to be able to report out on impact on deals, etc. I am still working on how to track other acts of advocacy (webinars, public speaking, leaving reviews, etc.) without using another vendor. Right now, it's in disparate spreadsheets. Our team has started to use Asana recently, so when I staff a customer webinar or event, I can pull that info from Asana now, but it's still separate from the reference call data which isn't ideal. (And I really don't want to create a monster spreadsheet (yet) 😅)
#general - March 24, 2025 at 08:07 PM
I also used to join Sales + CS calls on a monthly basis with a "Customer Proof Round-Up" to showcase new content. I used to see a good uptick in usage after those calls 🙂
#general - March 24, 2025 at 04:43 PM
@Amy This is a short slide deck that I've presented on using AI to build block kits!
#general - March 24, 2025 at 03:36 PM
I like to use a Slack Block Kit builder for announcing case studies, so there are clickable buttons and the message doesn't get lost with a ton of other messages in Slack. This is my . Pro Tip: ChatGPT can write the JSON needed for building Slack Block Kit messages - this has been SUCH a timesaver for me 🙂
#general - March 24, 2025 at 01:04 PM
I typically announce them via a Sales Slack channel and give a TL;DR summary and "3 Reasons You Should Use This Case Study Now" with three bullet points about the value/use case shown in the customer case study. This makes it so they don't have to read the entire story up front, but can determine whether it is useful for a current customer or prospect.
#discussions - November 19, 2024 at 09:14 PM
Thank you both! We are currently using our CRM for tracking reference calls, so I like the idea of also tracking the rewards there, too!
#discussions - November 19, 2024 at 01:25 PM
Hi! I am working on my FY25 advocacy program planning deck and we need to standardize how we are rewarding our advocates/references... Besides implementing a new tool (like Influitive, etc.) have anyone built out a rewards tier system that has worked well for them? (Sendoso integrations? Ways to automate?) Any insights are helpful 🙂 Right now, I am tracking everything manually and sending out individual Sendoso gifts. TY!
#discussions - November 05, 2024 at 09:18 PM
Our customer success teams typically know their customers best so we lean on them to identify potential advocates and referenceable customers!
We created a Salesforce/Planhat field where our CSMs can update the customer's referenceability - this is then pulled into a report that serves as our "Reference Roster" when we are looking for a customer to participate in a reference call or other opportunity (webinar, public speaking, case study, etc.). Then Customer Marketing (me) tracks when these activities happen so we can make sure we aren't overusing the same customers and are rewarding our most loyal advocates.
The next phase of the advocacy program will be allowing customers to opt in to join a formal branded advocacy program/group. The invitation to join will likely still come from the CSM, but the customer would be able to opt in and note activities that they are particularly interested in.
#discussions - November 05, 2024 at 02:04 PM
Thank you!! This is great!
#discussions - November 04, 2024 at 08:20 PM
Hi CMA friends! I am looking to revamp our current customer case study slides with a new slide template. Do any of you have a template that you really like? That the sales team uses regularly? That's clear about ROI and visually appealing? Tells the whole story without being a whole slide of text? Any suggestions or examples would be super appreciated!
#discussions - August 12, 2024 at 09:37 PM
Hi CMA friends! I am putting together guidelines for our GTM teams on reference call requests and I was wondering if any of you have set a threshold for the # of reference call requests that can be sent to a customer in a certain time frame? Something "a customer cannot be requested more than 6x per quarter" or "1 reference request per 30 days." Is there a best practice or "magic number" that you've seen work to combat reference burnout? Thanks in advance!
#jobs - August 05, 2024 at 03:28 PM
(Not affiliated) I had a recruiter reach out on Linkedin with an role at Yext, if anyone is interested!
#welcome - March 19, 2024 at 08:08 PM
Hi everyone! Nice to e-meet you 👋
🌎 I am located just outside of Washington, DC
💻 I manage all things customer advocacy: CAB, peer reviews, customer reference program, and more
🎯 Currently working on streamlining + program-atizing peer review initiatives; working closely with CS and Sales to embed in existing processes
In my free time, I am training for a half-marathon and I have two rescue pups that keep me super busy!
➕ !