The Road to Advocacy Program Optimization

In the latest edition of our Referential “Employee Highlight” series, we strive to provide our global team of consultants with an opportunity to shed light on themselves and their experiences working in Customer Marketing with some of the most visionary companies around the world.

These are organized into a Q&A format, and each focuses on a specific theme, or a rotation of Referential’s 9 pillars of service. Our discussion today is with part of the leadership team here at Referential.

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What is your name and title? 
Jennifer Doyon, and I am a Principal here at Referential.  

How long have you been working in customer advocacy? 
Fifteen years ago, I started as a reference manager for a large ERP vendor, a company that grew by acquisition with dozens of products. Our advocacy program evolved, and I primarily performed sales fulfillment. At the time, we were a Referential client and were using a platform called Boulder Logic, which is now RO Innovation, owned by Upland Software. At that time, working closely with the Referential team, I became very familiar with tech stacks, establishing when the ideal times are to work with platforms as they are and when to seek out advanced customizations.  

Are there any significant differences between how Referential supported you as a client then, and how they support their clients today? 
Our management leaned heavily on Referential, especially regarding reporting and metrics. The systems we had in place at the time benefitted greatly from the expertise they provided, and Referential was helpful in guiding our organization to extract the numbers and metrics that were important in justifying our program and headcount. As a result of targeted reporting and Referential assistance, we consistently increased the budget while validating our programs yearly.  

How does Referential assist in justifying overall program budgets?  
Beyond the regular cadence of metrics and reporting, we go above and beyond for our clients’ advocacy programs by creating a CLTR-L report. This data, which we gather and assemble for them, presents the longevity and total spending of customers in the advocacy program versus those who don't participate. These figures help demonstrate the program's value from a churn and total spend perspective. We've found that these are particularly important in assisting with budget discussions and getting executive buy-in for the program.  

What leads an organization to seek out an RMS or a CAP specifically, even if they already have one, and what drives companies without a platform to explore options as well? 
If a client is looking to optimize a system in place or is interested in implementing something new, we’re prepared to support them. Referential has worked with many companies that manage their references or advocacy programs within spreadsheets, but scaling in Excel becomes more difficult with time. Time consumption, outdated information, and data management eventually get to the point of impeding efficiency. Most importantly, it's about proving the value of the program and the impact that customers are making on business growth. 

Is there a specific point that Referential recommends moving beyond a spreadsheet? 
We recommend that once you have over 500 records, it's time to implement a platform. Initially, clients are looking for a system to improve data accuracy, track advocate preferences, and record a history of the advocates' work for the company. Beyond that, the ultimate goal is to automate processes and become more efficient in onboarding advocates and fulfilling reference requests. 

What factors should be considered when considering a Reference Management System (RMS) or Customer Advocacy Platform (CAP)? 
What comes immediately to mind is: What other platforms do you need to integrate with? What level of audience are you targeting? Are you interested in creating user-generated content? Do you currently offer rewards to your advocates? If you're looking at the practitioner audience and that is important to you, maybe you want to have a gamified program so you can get more volume of people. Are you looking to have a program that involves C-level contacts? What is the best type of platform to track those types of advocates? 

It's also important to keep an eye on the future. For example, will the community play a role now or in the future? Some platforms integrate with communities, and some don't.    

Can external expertise make a difference when they're navigating the complexities of these platforms? 
Referential has worked with all of these platforms at various-sized companies and offers firsthand experience to strategically guide our clients. We've seen how different-sized organizations across varied industries have optimized the technologies they rely on for their programs. One of the biggest things to keep in mind when you're taking on a project like this is, simply put, time.  

Much of our clients’ time must be dedicated to this initiative. Their leadership has to be on board with the fact that they’ll need to re-prioritize day-to-day responsibilities to make this implementation or platform optimization project successful.  

Referential provides immediate impact by working one-on-one with the vendor and representing the client in all sessions. We ensure that we install a best-practices approach related to customer advocacy during implementation, maintain our client’s deadlines, and guarantee that they bring deliverables to all meetings. This is not an insignificant amount of time and needs to be allocated to ensure a successful project. Having Referential as a partner here has proven to be a real difference-maker for all our accounts. 

We're not running it for you, but we're running it side by side with you to make sure that you're aware of how one piece affects another, meaning how the data is going to be used across the platform or how the data is going to integrate from your other systems.   

How comprehensive is the information Referential provides about the different platform options? 
It is completely customized for the individual client. The first step is a discovery followed by a deep dive with the client to understand their pain points and expectations for a solution. There is no one-size-fits-all approach; every program is different, and we want to ensure that we understand your business goals and your strategic initiatives relative to your corporate goals.  

Based on the program's needs and what we learn from the client, we try to narrow it down to three technology vendors and proceed from there. This is followed by a progressively deeper dive into platform functionality in major categories such as reference tracking, matching admin capabilities, reporting structure, and content management, just to name a few. 

The process proceeds from there by further exploring the categories and establishing an understanding of the client's very specific needs. Referential then does a functionality line-by-line comparison of all the different platforms, based on their needs, with a weighted scoring rubric. We don't make a hardline recommendation, but we will discuss the pros and cons of each platform related to the client's specific needs.  

How have we helped clients in the past with platform optimizations and implementations? 
We'll audit the platform to see how the data management structure is established and what the established processes are, if there are any. We'll also interview staff to learn how the technology has been used historically. We'll take this opportunity to document their likes and dislikes and how they might prefer the platform to perform.  

Referential has assisted with implementations across multiple platforms, and every implementation is different. But like I said, we work closely with the vendor and the client to understand their needs and wants, and we try to ensure that everyone's goals are met on time and within budget. Along the way, we're continuing to weave in the best practices related to the standards we learn in the ICCAP certifications. 

Are your best practices universal, or do they differ depending on the technology? 
In the world of customer advocacy, many of our best practices are standardized. We adhere to a high standard, but we certainly aren't in the mindset of telling the client what to do. We want to understand their preferred procedures and processes, as well, because ultimately, it improves how we provide our own services.  

We love to listen and learn; it’s all about finding new ways to help and making our clients’ lives easier!

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