I’m a big fan of Pragmatic Marketing and their approach to product management and marketing. I wrote this article a while back for their publication, but definitely feel it is still super relevant. Enjoy!
Does this sound like a typical scenario in your company? You get an “S.O.S.” email at 5:00 p.m. blasted out to 20 people asking for a customer willing to serve as a reference. Oh, and we need to get the information to the customer first thing in the morning. A chain of emails continues until noon two days later when the prospect is finally sent the reference’s information. If only there was a better way…
Satisfied customers willing to serve as references for your new prospects often make the difference in closing the sale. However, getting and keeping those references is a challenging and time-consuming job. While so critical to the success of sales, this responsibility often falls in the lap of marketing and product management professionals who may not be as close to the individual customers as their sales representatives.
Read the full article to understand seven ways to acquire and retain customer references.
Joshua,
You Pragmatic Marketing article is a spectacular overview of the Customer Reference Management process. I look forward to what you will do with this blog. You come to it with a very valuable perspective. I think “customer capital” is central to the whole concept of thought leadership strategy.
Best,
Britton
Britton Manasco
Illuminating the Future