Resources for Customer Reference Professionals

Customer Reference Forum® is a community of customer reference professionals and customer reference managers from many of the leading corporations in the world.

2009 Forum


To keep informed of the 2009 Fall Workshop, please click here.

To keep informed of the 2010 Customer Reference Forum, please click here.

Reference Pros Brainstorm in Berkeley on “Dealing With the Downturn” at the 2009 Customer Reference Forum

Despite a tough economy, reference professionals from many of the world’s leading reference programs gathered in Berkeley, CA, February 17-19, to exchange ideas and build their professional networks. The list of attending firms included Microsoft, Oracle, EMC, Intel, Apple, Hewlett-Packard, SAS Institute, Hitachi Data Systems, AmerisourceBergen, Adobe Systems, Sun Microsystems, Genesys, Teradata, Qwest Communications, Research in Motion, Salesforce.com, Alcatel-Lucent, Red hat, National Instruments and dozens of other great firms (see full list below).

“I was really impressed withthe event and found it very valuable and helpful. I am already looking forward to next year's event! Thanks for everything.”
Anne Chen, Sr Marketing Writer, Salesforce.com

“It was a wonderful conference and both my colleague and I are excited about everything we learned there. We are working on a project plan to continue to build out our program and capture metrics around it's success. We have a lot of work ahead of us, but we are very excited about it.”
Colleen Bornstad, Coordinator, Market Development, AmerisourceBergen

A Few Key Takeaways

  • Engaging with CIOs. Former Motorola CIO Patty Morrison described how reference managers can play a key role in building close relationships with senior decision makers at your customers. Particularly if you tie referencing to performance (not rewards), and if you offer decision maker-customers the full gamut of “Customer Engagement” including reference, advisory board and community participation with their peers.
  • Raising your visibility. Many reference managers are recognizing the need to position their programs in the larger context of “Customer Engagement,” as outlined by Patty, as well as Forrester Research’s Laura Ramos, who used the term “Community Marketing” in her keynote. This will both raise its visibility with senior management, as well as enhance the relationship with customers.
  • Showing your value. Infor’s Abby Atkinson showed in great detail how she turned a program budget cut into a 60%+ increase. One key concept: showing decisively how reference programs preserve sales productivity. She and Mainstay’s Amir Hartman are working on an ROI Calculator based on Abby’s work.
  • Survey Results. Reference programs are reporting to higher level executives. Budgets are down, but the decrease is surprisingly small given our economy. Headcounts are dropping, with larger firms resorting to contract personnel. Everyone is being asked to do more. These are just a few of the results from our yearly survey.
  • Social Media update. Reference pros are watching and in some cases engaging actively with Social Media tools, and some programs (such as Intel’s) are finding uses that dramatically increase the visibility of existing reference content. A key point is to avoid diverting resources and time to chase the hype of Social Media, by making sure that the Social Media tools you use are having a clear impact on your reference program and ultimately on your firm’s sales and marketing.
  • Vendor solutions. Vendors in the space continue to develop new solutions in such areas as content creation, content and reference program management, customer ROI, PR and AR, audio, video, Customer Advisory Boards, Communities, etc. Dynamic new vendors are entering this space, including TechValidate (providing clients with rapid, 3d party validation from their customers, many of whom have previously refused to reference), and Pravda Studios (a media firm supporting Microsoft’s highly touted People Ready program, among other initiatives).

New Initiative

  • Raising the visibility of Reference Programs. Customer Reference Forum will be doing this in two ways. First we’re creating a Membership option for our community. It’s time that reference Professionals are identified with membership in a professional organization. Secondly, we are exploring a research project on the broader topic of “Customer Engagement” as suggested by Patty and Laura – of which reference Programs would be a key part. If you’re senior marketing or sales executive would be interested in participating, please let us know.
  • Vendor Service. Staffing cutbacks will lead to the need for more use of vendor services in some firms, yet with less manpower to engage in proper research and due diligence. Therefore, Customer Reference Forum is working on a Vendor Service to help with this. Stay tuned for further announcements.

FAST FACTS
2009 CUSTOMER REFERENCE FORUM

Where: Berkeley, CA at the Claremont Resort

When: February 17-19, 2009

Who Attended: Reference professionals from many of the top programs in the world: 3PAR, Actuate, Adobe Systems, Inc., Advanced Solutions Inc, Alcatel-Lucent, AmerisourceBergen, Apple, Inc., Ariba, Avanade, Avocent, Blue Coat, Citrix Online, EMC, Epicor Software Corporation, FM Global, Forrester Research, Genesys, Hewlett-Packard, Hitachi Data Systems, ILOG, Inc., Infor, Informatica, Intel, Intuit, Juniper Networks, Lappeenranta University of Technology, Lexmark International Inc., MarkMonitor, McAfee Inc., Microsoft, National Instruments, Netezza Corporation, Oracle, Polycom, Precise, Qwest Communications, Qwest Government Services, Red Hat, Research in Motion, Riverbed Technology, salesforce.com, SAS Institute, Inc., Siemens Enterprise Communications, Sun Microsystems, Teradata, UC4 Software, Verizon, Yoh.

President's Award Winner for Overall Presentation:

Laura Ramos, Vice President, Principal Analyst, Forrester Research, for her presentation on "Moving Beyond Customer Reference Programs to Engaged Communities"

President's Award Winner for Breakout Session:

Cynthia Hester, WW Software Customer Reference Program Lead, Hewlett-Packard, for her presentation "The M&A Opportunity for Customer Reference Programs"

President's Award Winner for Special Presentation:

SAS Institutes Craig Frampton, Leslie Vaughan, Kerry O’Shea and Elizabeth Stack for their Panel on "How to Stay Relevant in the Current Economy"

Who Presented
Presenters included:

 

  • Forrester’s Laura Ramos on Moving Beyond Customer Reference Programs to Engaged Communities
  • Infor’s Abby Atkinson on Protecting Your Program Budget
  • Patty Morrison former EVP & CIO Motorola, Office Depot, Quaker Oats, GE Industrial Systems on How to Convince a CIO to Reference, and How to Persuade a CIO to Buy
  • Precise’s Liz Pedro on Just Getting Started
  • Intel’s Rhett Livengood & Social Media Consultant Umang Shah on How to Get Your Hands Dirty in Web 2.0
  • Hewlett-Packard’s Cynthia Hester on the M&A Opportunity for Customer Reference Programs
  • Sun Microsystems' Christine Englund on Creating and Growing an Effective Global Reference Program
  • Genesys' Becky Roberts on Taming the Reference Data Beast
  • 3PAR’s Craig Nunes on Building Customer Advocacy with Your “Other 90%”
  • SAS Institute’s Craig Frampton, Leslie Vaughan, Kerry O’Shea and Elizabeth Stack on How to Stay Relevant in the Current Economy