Today we’re publishing the fifth blog in our rapid-fire series taking a look at our partner platforms, the previous of which you can find here discussing ChampionHQ. As we said in previous posts, some of these delve into best practices, some look at product features we find particularly interesting and others talk genuine stories of data migrations.

Today’s post will be speaking directly to some of the product features that get us excited about SlapFive! Founded by Jeff Ernst, former Forrester Analyst, who states that “I started SlapFive because I believe that customer stories, told in the customers' voices are the last bastion of competitive advantage for B2B firms. Competitors imitate your unique features in days, they copy your messages in minutes, but they can't steal the success stories of your customers. The most important thing that marketing leaders can do to grow their firms is to create engagement that makes customers successful, and get customers to tell those success stories.”

We find this approach extremely interesting- with that in mind, let’s have a look at SlapFive!

High-Level: Platform Overview 

In today's competitive landscape, leveraging genuine endorsements is more critical than ever, and SlapFive, an impressive Reference Management Software (RMS) / Customer Advocacy Platform (CAP), provides a well-rounded solution to manage and amplify these assets. While this isn’t a deep-dive into its capabilities, the following are a few features we’re excited to talk about. 

—-Advocacy Management 

SlapFive offers a unique approach for the process of capturing and showcasing customer stories, testimonials, and references. The interface allows teams to efficiently manage customer relationships, ensuring that the most compelling customer voices are always at the forefront of marketing efforts.

Within SlapFive, it’s possible to import target customers into your recruitment pipeline, communicate with them about the program, track responses and measure conversion. Customers can opt into activities of interest, and via push notification you can offer them opportunities to engage, which are viewable wherever they are. SlapFive enables its clients to build relationship capital by offering customers opportunities to share their knowledge and experience.

—-Integration and Automation 

SlapFive integrates seamlessly with existing marketing and sales tools, which includes major CRMs, email marketing systems, and social media channels, enabling businesses to amplify their customer advocacy efforts across multiple platforms. Additionally, automation features help in nurturing customer relationships by automatically sending follow-up emails, requesting feedback, and scheduling interviews with satisfied customers. This automation reduces manual workload and ensures a consistent and timely outreach.

As the customer marketing landscape continues to evolve, we are seeing many companies merging Customer Advocacy with Community. The SlapFive Community Connector is a tool designed to integrate customer advocacy into existing customer communities, or those that are launching a new one. Clients have the ability to use an existing platform such as Khoros or Vanilla, or purchase the private-labeled option (Gradual) from SlapFive.   

The SlapFive Community Connector ensures the community delivers value to both members and the company. By surfacing advocates, simplifying advocacy preferences, offering engagement opportunities, and awarding badges for contributions, it enhances peer-to-peer interactions and fosters a more engaged and motivated community. 

—-Media Capabilties 

There are often concerns amongst customer advocacy and marketing practitioners that static testimonials will be seen and forgotten, and that yesterday’s story is no longer relevant today. SlapFive addresses this with its ability to collect media in near real-time, allowing admins to request, collect and share video testimonials, audio clips, and written stories. These customer narratives can be easily embedded into websites, social media posts, and email campaigns, providing an engaging and customizable way to highlight customer satisfaction and success stories.

There are few things as alluring, for a customer marketer, as sending out a prompt to a champion of your product, and having them send back a recorded response at their leisure, which can then be edited and published!

—-Advocate Job Change Tracker 

In a dynamic business environment where professionals frequently transition between roles and companies, maintaining and nurturing advocate relationships can be challenging. Where there’s a need, there’s a way! Announced only a few days prior to the publication of this blog by SlapFive CEO Jeff Ernst, the SlapFive Advocate Job Change Tracker is a strategic solution intended to address this.

According to Jeff, “you can make sure you develop or identify a new champion at the old company. If the advocate goes to a company that is not a client, you can nurture them to get them to bring you into their new company. If the advocate goes to a company that is already a client, you can get the advocate to re-engage with you and your program. You can automate the updating of the advocate's Member Profile to keep your database accurate. …You can then do an audit on the content about that customer to decide whether to keep, modify, or retire each asset.”  

While we have not yet seen this feature in practice due to its recent release, it will no doubt be extremely useful for many of us in the customer advocacy space who have been desiring this functionality for some time.

—-Conclusion 

At Referential, we’re excited about the reality of SlapFive’s ability to transform customer advocacy and drive measurable results for our clients. With its long and growing list of features and integrations, SlapFive is a exciting addition to any customer engagement strategy.

If your organization is considering investing in a RMS or a CAP, but feels unsure about the specific features, requirements, or the right questions to ask, Referential is here to help! As an agency with extensive experience, we understand the complexities and nuances of these tools because we work with them on a daily basis across a variety of industries and company sizes. Our platform-agnostic approach ensures that we provide unbiased guidance tailored to your unique needs, helping you make informed decisions that best support your customer advocacy initiatives. Reach out to hello@referentialinc.com for a free 30 minute consultation with industry professionals with expertise navigating the RMS and CAP landscape! 

Stay tuned for the next in our Partner Platform Overview series, where we dive into Orca!