1. State of the Profession Series
Case studies from the world’s top customer advocacy
and engagement programs, showing how to grow the
business in today’s buyer-empowered world.
WhattoKnowWhenYou’reJustStarting
YourCustomerReferenceProgram
By Charlotte Lilley,
Head of Customer Programs,
Box

2. 1
For new (or rebuilding) customer advocacy programs, if you
need to start with the basics, want a mentor "who's been there
and done that" to show you how, and also show you the pitfalls
and rabbit traits to avoid, this session is for you. Charlotte is
one of the most dynamic members of our Advisory Board, has
built the advocacy program at Box from the ground up and grown it into a superb
engine helping to fuel Box's rapid growth.

3. 2
WhattoKnowWhenYou’reJustStartingYourCustomerReference
Program
In this report, I’m going to talk about the fundamental building blocks of an effective
customer reference program. That’s a very important topic for us as practitioners, but
especially for those who are just starting their own program. I’ve lived this over the
last four-plus years at Box. Since then, our company has grown from 40 employees to
about 1,000 today. I wish I had known then a lot of what we’re going to go over now.
Asuccessfulreferenceprogramissupportedby11pillars
The Parthenon in Athens, Greece was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient
World. If you’ve ever visited the site, one of the most prominent features are the
columns everywhere. In total, the structure had 46 separate columns to support
its massive weight.
I think that a column, or pillar, is a fantastic analogy that we can apply to
a reference program. Reference teams interact with many different departments
and people within the enterprise and we’re called upon to provide substantial
output, such as customer content, a growing number of customer advocates,
and metrics demonstrating impact.
Maintaining a successful reference program requires infrastructure and it’s the
conceptual pillars that make up that framework, just as the marble columns
upheld the Parthenon’s superstructure.
Figure 1: 11 components support an effective customer reference program.
In this report, we'll focus on the first five, which are the most critical for a new
advocacy program.
REFERENCE
PROGRAM
EXECUTIVE
SUPPORT
PROMOTION
FIELD
RELATIONS
CUSTOMER
CONTENT
PROGRAM
METRICS
CLIENT
RELATIONS
IT
PROGRAM
VISION
OUTSIDE
EXPERTISE
MANAGING
UPWARD

4. 3
ExecutiveSupport
In order to be successful, you absolutely must have the full support of your
executive team. Executives set the tone for your program. Others look to them for
cues as to how they should treat you. If your executives are dismissive about your
role, then everyone else will be too. That’s important for a number of reasons.
If you look to the far right of the diagram above, you’ll see Cross-function listed.
Successful program managers work effectively with a lot of people across the
enterprise. If your executives support you, then these people tend to work with
you. If not, gaining support for your program can be more challenging.
At Box, we’re lucky to have a CEO who is extremely passionate about our
customers and using them as public references, which helps inspire me to
grow the program as much as possible, and as quickly as possible. Direct
attention from your CEO can seem intimidating, but it’s a great position to be in
for a person in our role, especially if you can leverage that passion to get more
customers into your program.
Another reason executive support is important relates to your budget. If your
executives support and value your mission, then you’re much more likely to get
the resources to grow your program(s).
Executive support is also critical when it comes to recruiting marquee-brand
references. We’re all aware that it’s challenging to get in front of a high-level
executive at a large brand, let alone getting them to publicly partner with us.
Leveraging your executives’ existing relationships with their peers can yield the
introductions necessary to get one foot in the door. And that can jumpstart
a long-term relationship with those customers.
ProgramPromotion
When it comes to a reference program, the adage that “If you build it they will
come,” does not apply. Successful program managers promote their programs:
to their executives, to fellow employees and to customers. At Box, we do this in
a number of ways.
“Co-brand” with customer logos
At Box, we’re proud to have so many great brands among
our customers. One way we promote our program is by
putting our customers’ logos up on our walls. It’s a great

5. 4
way to promote your hard work and to show appreciation to current customers.
And it gets noticed. Often, when current customers or prospects visit our
offices, they ask how they can get onto the wall!
We also compile lists of referenceable customers segmented by industry, use
case and geography to help support the sales team. The goal is to equip them
to “name-drop” when appropriate to their prospects. Our stellar client list helps
validate Box as a technology solution provider and proves that we’re here to
partner long term with our customers.
Give out cool swag
“Hey, David, where’d you get that cool shirt?” We try to
give out swag that’s both useful and that represents the
BoxStar brand. That means putting thought into the design
of our handouts and making sure it’s something people
will use, wear and/or display proudly. People love the design of our “BoxStar”
t-shirts, so it’s that type of gift that stimulates conversations about our program,
which is exactly what we want. We want our customer advocates talking up our
program in the marketplace.
Use events to create a buzz
We participate in a number of events throughout the
year to promote our reference program and to recruit
references. Talking to customers face-to-face creates
a human connection and is the most powerful tool we have
in building relationships. If you’ve met and spent time speaking with a customer
face-to-face, I guarantee any future requests will have better results in getting
them to agree to be a reference.
Give people a badge of honor
Another fantastic way to promote your program is through
stickers and other fun reminders. We use stickers as
a badge of recognition for our Sales Advisory Board
Members. Reps put these on their computers and desks to
show their involvement. We also use magnets [with program facts] to walk our
colleagues through the steps of how to get involved in our reference program.

6. 5
FieldRelations
Much of a successful reference program relies upon the relationships you
have with the field (sales, post sales and sales engineers.) That’s because
partnering with your field people is the most important way to identify new
reference customers. By taking the time to communicate clearly with them, to
offer incentives and to make it easy for them to participate, you will increase the
success of your program.
At Box, we do a lot of things in this area, but I’ll focus on a couple in particular.
The first is incentives.
One incentive that was extremely successful for us was what I called the “Story
Time Happy Hour.” I needed to get sales reps’ “customer stories” out of their
heads and into a central database so that they could be leveraged across all
departments. It isn’t easy to get reps to take time out from selling and dedicate
that to writing out the whole customer story (use case, contacts, deal cycle,
workflow, etc.) Therefore, I made it as easy as possible by scheduling one-hour
time slots on their calendars, bringing in beer for them to enjoy and paying them
in cold hard cash for every story they wrote. The result was over 100 stories to
be utilized by my team, an average of about 2 stories per sales rep.
This incentive worked because I made it easy for them to show up, made it very
clear what their deliverable was and made it fun with beer and cash. I can say
that this approach certainly stood out against other “spiffs” or incentives they
were competing for their attention.
From my experience as a sales person, I know that pure competition drives
sales peoples’ behavior. So to take advantage of this, we created a quarterly
contest to incent them. The contest calls for specific types of customers and
stories that map to our pre-identified gaps for use in Box’ marketing programs
and campaigns. Of course, there are prizes along with public shout-outs of the
winners to boost their egos.
Another thing we’ve found helpful to scale our message is to provide how-
to videos on how to get involved with the reference program. These videos
cover how to nominate a customer as a reference, how to request a reference,
how to search references in the database and more. Sales people are busy so
everything that we do to make their lives easier ultimately benefits our program.
Understanding your customers’ conversations and how to harness them in
cold hard cash for every story they wrote. The result was over 100 stories to be
utilized by my team, an average of about 2 stories per sales rep.

7. 6
This incentive worked because I made it easy for them to show up, made it very
clear what their deliverable was and made it fun with beer and cash. I can say
that this approach certainly stood out against other “spiffs” or incentives they
were competing for their attention.
From my experience as a sales person, I know that pure competition drives
sales peoples’ behavior. So to take advantage of this, we created a quarterly
contest to incent them. The contest calls for specific types of customers and
stories that map to our pre-identified gaps for use in Box’ marketing programs
and campaigns. Of course, there are prizes along with public shout-outs of the
winners to boost their egos.
Another thing we’ve found helpful to scale our message is to provide how-
to videos on how to get involved with the reference program. These videos
cover how to nominate a customer as a reference, how to request a reference,
how to search references in the database and more. Sales people are busy so
everything that we do to make their lives easier ultimately benefits our program.
Customercontent
One major output of a reference team is customer content. At Box, we produce
this “collateral” in many different forms to support many departments and
initiatives across the organization.
We create customer case studies,
which are 1-3 pages in length using
the standard, challenge, solution and
benefits format. We make liberal use
of customers’ quotes to insert the
voice of the customer. We also make
a concerted effort to articulate the
measurable impact of our services,
such as ROI, time-savings, cost savings,
customer employee productivity
increases and how Box changed the
way that they do business overall.
We also create customer statistics
assets. Things like charts and graphs
based on data from real-world clients
that tout the basic measurable results
that our customers experience.

8. 7
Another great content piece is
infographics. What I love about them is
the visual story that they tell. It’s quick and
interesting and you can show data in ways
that plain text cannot easily describe.
Contentisimportant,butsotooistheneed
toplaceyourcontentinastrategiccontext.
It’s always a good practice to meet
and strategize with your program
stakeholders to identify ways to support
their initiatives. For example, product
marketing might need customer quotes
for an upcoming product launch or
analyst relations may need customer
statistics for an important analyst
report. Partnering and agreeing upon an
executable plan before creating content
ensures that the assets you produce will
be valuable. Remember to revisit that
plan at consistence intervals to be sure
that your priorities remain aligned.
ProgramMetrics
One of the best ways that you can get—and keep—executive support is by
capturing, tabulating and reporting the impact that your activities have on your
company’s revenue. At Box, we measure a number of things.
Internally, we measure who’s taking
part in our program, including
sales people, sales engineers and
marketers. These statistics have been
an eye opener for my executive team
because out of a pool of 500 sales
people and sales engineers and post-
sales people, 400 are participating
in my programs. So that proves
right there the effectiveness I’ve had
promoting our program.New
Box Stars
Customer
Stories
Qualification
Calls
Special
Requests
14%
5%
72%
9%
Boxer Reference Activity
216 reference activities completed
by Boxers in Q1

9. 8
We are able to report on which
customers participated in what
activity. And that gives us the ability
to analyze what we’re doing and tweak
our program accordingly if needed.
One of the most important metrics
you can report is the influence
that your reference activities have
on revenue. This is an absolutely
essential component of a successful
reference program. Your executive support is based on these reports when you
get right down to it. That’s because they spend their days looking at, analyzing
and strategizing about financial
reports. They are a major part of an
executive’s life.
We do track metrics for the collateral
that was produced for each quarter.
This is important only in so far as
we’re showing the output from our
work. We also use these stats to
promote our program and to show
sales people that we are constantly
adding fresh content to help them
close more sales.
Note that metrics about what you do isn’t nearly as important—not by a long
shot—as being able to link that work to your company’s revenue and business
growth. So don’t get mired in spreadsheets and reports that show what you’ve
done. Instead, focus on the impact that your activities have had.
So those are the first five pillars of a successful reference program. What I’ll do
now is briefly touch upon the remaining five.
ClientRelations
Implementing and managing your touches with customers is a very important
skill. So think through the things that you do in this area. How are you talking to
customers? Email, events, etc.? What are you doing to get them engaged? Are
you giving them swag, or doing user groups? Have you set up a community or
portal for them to meet and exchange ideas?
Customer participation
in Reference Program
by activity
Reference CallSpeaking
Press/
Analyst
Case Study
Video
BoxStar Collateral Produced
15
Case
Studies
7
BoxWorks-specific statistics
for event marketing
$523,970
Influenced Revenue

10. 9
IT
This is a huge area. There is an entire ecosystem of vendors and applications
(SaaS and standalone) that you can draw from. That of course depends upon
the size of your company and your budget.
What’s important here is that you need a system to capture, and manage, all
your reference program information and activities. For some that might be
a spreadsheet. But I highly recommend that if you’re able, that you look at the
other technologies available out there today.
What you want are software applications that include the following features:
• The ability to roll out self-service functionality to users. If you don’t, then your
whole day will be spent on tactical fulfilment.
• The ability to track, collate and report metrics. IT is a blessing for reference
practitioners because it allows us to report the metrics that executives
care about.
• The ability to automate some processes and drive up departmental
productivity. Reference program staffs tend to be small, so you don’t want
your team to spend hours performing manual tasks each day.
ProgramVision
You need to have a clear strategic imperative and link your program’s goals
directly to your executives’ top corporate goals. Then you need to map out
strategies to achieve those goals and of course tactics to support each one.
OutsideExpertise
Many of us are fortunate to partner with outside vendors and people who
help us with their technology or consultation. So you want to enlist the aid of
companies and individuals who do customer references for a living.
I would also add the importance of joining customer-reference-centric groups
like the Customer Reference Forum, groups on LinkedIn and other relevant
organizations. The time I’ve spent talking with my industry peers has been
extremely helpful to me throughout my career.

11. 10
ManagingUpward
Managing your business relationship with your executives is every bit as
important as how you manage your client relations. For this pillar, I would have
you consider how you’re taking the successes of your program and conveying
them to your managers and executives. It’s important to do that effectively to
ensure the consistent and strong support that you need for the long term.
Crossfunction
Lastly, you need to make sure that you’re working and playing well with all
your corporate stakeholders and constituents. Like I said, so much of what
we do depends upon the assistance and support of many people across our
companies that we have to pay attention to this area. That means educating
people about your program along with establishing realistic expectations about
turnaround times, and what content you can produce for them. It also means
establishing processes that keep things running smoothly, and that don’t let
things fall between the cracks.
Finalthoughts
So that’s it! That’s all you have to do. Yes, admittedly that can be an intimidating
list of pillars to build. But many of them already exist at your company, so
your challenge is to learn to use and optimize them for best results. After
that, I would suggest that you prioritize the missing pillars and focus on
implementing them gradually.
The payoff for this hard work will be a successful reference program. And
it will beef up your resume too. Companies are always going to need skilled
people who can develop and use the 11 pillars of a successful customer
reference program.

12. Bill Lee, Founder
bill@c4ce.com
www.c4ce.com
+1.214.907.5600
3225 Turtle Creek Blvd,
Suite 1801 Dallas
TX 75219
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