Get Started With Customer Advocacy
Develop a customer advocacy program to transform customer satisfaction into revenue growth.
Client Challenge
Getting started with customer advocacy (CA) is no easy task. Many customer success professionals carry out ad hoc customer advocacy activities to address immediate needs but lack a more strategic approach.
Our Advice
Critical Insight
- Customer success leaders must reposition their CA program around growth; the recognition that customer advocacy is a strategic growth initiative is necessary to succeed in today’s competitive market.
- Get key stakeholders on board early – especially Sales!
- Always link your CA efforts back to retention and growth.
- Make building genuine relationships with your advocates the cornerstone of your CA program.
Impact and Result
- Enable the organization to identify and develop meaningful relationships with top customers and advocates.
- Understand the concepts and benefits of CA and how CA can be used to improve marketing and sales and fuel growth and competitiveness.
- Follow SoftwareReviews’ methodology to identify where to start to apply CA within the organization.
- Develop a customer advocacy proof of concept/pilot program to gain stakeholder approval and funding to get started with or expand efforts around customer advocacy.
Research & Tools
Get Started With Customer Advocacy Executive Brief – An overview of why customer advocacy is critical to your organization and the recommended approach for getting started with a pilot program.
Understand the strategic benefits and process for building a formal customer advocacy program. To be successful, you must reposition CA as a strategic growth initiative and continually link any CA efforts back to growth.
This executive brief will help you build the business case for launching a formal CA program as well as provide you with the overall steps for how to get started.
| Name | Actions |
|---|---|
| Get Started With Customer Advocacy – Executive Brief |
Need Help?
Speak With an Advisor
Get the help you need in this 3-phase advisory process. You'll receive 14 touchpoints with our researchers, all included in your membership:
-
Guided Implementation #1 - Build the Business Case
- Call # 1 Discuss concepts and benefits of customer advocacy as they apply to organizational goals. Plan next call – 1 week.
- Call # 2 Identify key stakeholders. Map out motivations and anticipate any concerns or objections. Plan next call – 1 week.
- Call # 3 Discuss opportunities, risks, and risk mitigation tactics. Plan next call – 1 week.
- Call # 4 Finalize CA goals, opportunities, and risks and develop business case. Plan next call – 2 weeks.
- Call # 5 Discuss approach for gaining buy-in from CEO and head of Sales. Plan next call – 2 weeks.
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Guided Implementation #2 - Develop Your Advocacy Requirements
- Call # 1 Discuss your organization’s readiness for customer advocacy. Plan next call – 1 week.
- Call # 2 Review the SoftwareReviews CA Maturity Assessment Tool. Assess your current level of customer advocacy maturity. Plan next call – 1 week.
- Call # 3 Review gaps and pains in current CA efforts. Discuss tactics and possible CA pilot program goals. Begin adding tasks to action plan. Plan next call – 2 weeks.
- Call # 4 Discuss ideal advocate profile and target segments. Plan next call – 2 week.
- Call # 5 Discuss price, timing, and ROI. Plan next call – 3 weeks.
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Guided Implementation #3 - Create Action Plan and Pitch CA Pilot
- Call # 1 Discuss CA pilot scope. Discuss performance metrics and KPIs. Plan next call – 3 days.
- Call # 2 Develop implementation plan for pilot program. Plan next call –2 weeks.
- Call # 3 Review and finalize implementation plan and metrics. Plan next call – 3 days.
- Call # 4 Review final business case and coach on executive presentation. Plan next call – 1 week.
Author
- Emily Wright
- Jeff Golterman
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