How to build a great customer references program, and why you absolutely should

In 2021, more than $300 billion was invested into startups by venture capital firms. A massive percentage of those dollars were invested in B2B startups. At Ridge, our sole focus is B2B startups — companies that sell into SMEs, government agencies, and the enterprise.?

That level of investment tells a vivid story, one of an increasingly competitive landscape. The number of solutions offered to CXOs and businesses is growing daily, whether it be a new marketing tech stack solution, corporate wellness software or the next generation of cybersecurity tools. The next generation of software has been built, and now it’s being deployed by customers at a significant scale.?

This also means existing companies work towards retaining their customers and also feel the squeeze of competitive threats around every corner. New and established companies need to figure out how to do the same but do so in a more competitive environment - they need to find, eject the incumbent solutions then maintain the new customer.?

While there are many strategies for customer acquisition and retention, customer references are constantly overlooked. Many companies approach customer references as a one-off sales or marketing activity. In reality, it’s a foundational element.?

A lot more goes into building an effective customer references program than slapping a logo onto a sales deck. Throughout your relationship, you’ve built a story with each customer that can be explored in depth. Who are they? What do they do? How long have they been your customer? How did they find you? What value have you provided, both expected and unexpected??

As you navigate a more competitive sales landscape, your primary objective is to communicate to a prospect why they should buy your product now versus later versus never versus buying something entirely different. The impact of all the transformation going on at companies has meant that CIO and customer technical stacks are becoming very crowded.? So building a compelling need for something new is critical and challenging. The ability to do this effectively hinges on great customer references.?

So what do good customer references look like? There are a few steps to building out an effective program, and the work starts early.?

1. As you work with early customers, reiterate to them throughout the acquisition process how critical customer references will be to your future success. Understand that most times, the first response will be no. Many companies, especially enterprises, simply don’t want to deal with the lengthy internal approval cycles associated with public endorsement of a product. Your product might be unproven, or its value might be unclear at the outset. That’s okay. Continue to clearly articulate and outline the need for their reference. Ask for what you need. How do you move it along? Help them complete internal process document if need be.?
2. Be able to clearly articulate what the reference entails and why it’s valuable to the customer, too. In most cases, it will be a press release or case study. That requires internal approvals and reviews on the customer’s end. Why should the executive sponsor or team make an effort to do so? Provide them with an incentive. That might be as simple as making their brand look innovative, or it might entail some sort of financial incentive, like a discount on your product or additional services. IT teams are also overlooked, and providing your customer chanpion(s) with an opportunity to tell their story and talk about their own innovation journey can also be a powerful incentive. Showcase the fact that these people are forward-thinking, that they brought in a great solution and provided value to their organization.?
3. Invest in the resources you need to do customer references right. It can easily fall into product marketing or your comms effort. It can also be encapsulated as an incentive program for the customer success team. Align a goal and a quota around approvals for sales people, too, and clearly demonstrate how they can be involved in the customer story. Look into hiring a technical writer or comms pro to help produce the content the right way. Keep this as a recurring budget item.?
4. Think about how to keep your customer stories fresh. Being able to talk about the journey of a legacy customer, from early-stage through to today, shows you’re building a product that continues to evolve, continues to demonstrate impact and ROI, a product that should become part of every CIO’s standard strategy. Prospects really respond to these stories; they show that your product is built for the long term.?
5. If you are in stealth, customer references are the absolute best possible asset to have as you come out. The production cost can be high, but it is time and money well spent. Make sure the story is as good visually as it is content-wise — invest in a good photoshoot, videos with high production value, and tell the story the way it’s supposed to be told. Don’t just talk about the solution, but how you deployed it, the partnership developed with your customer success team, the overall effort involved. Demonstrate that you understand how to add value at every stage.?

If you run into customers that are reticent or unable to be a public reference, ask them to be a private reference. These customers might not be able to tell their stories to the press, but they can speak to other prospects, investors, fellow CIOs, even high-profile prospective hires. Bring the voice of the customer to your employees, and feature them at an all-hands or sales kickoff. Most customers are eager for the chance to provide such direct feedback. There are a ton of precious customer-centric activities that can still take place under NDA!?

Many of the outputs required for a successful GTM strategy are built on the back of these same conversations. The impact of customer reference programs goes far beyond a case study on a website. It’s something that requires everyone to pull together — sales, product, marketing and executive leadership all have to chip in and get on the same page.