2016 customer advocacy survey report

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SECTION 1: EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
OVERVIEW OF SURVEY
This year marks the sixth year in which Mainstay, in partnership with the
Center for Customer Engagement, surveyed leading customer reference
programs worldwide. While key aspects of customer referencing have not
change significantly over the years, this period has witnessed the
emergence of new trends and market realities that we believe will compel
companies to update and refocus how they design and execute customer
reference and engagement programs.
These new trends and realities – most notably the spread of the Subscription
Economy and the growing empowerment of the customer – are discussed in
Section 2, along with recommendations for program executives and
managers. Section 3 presents key survey benchmark data in raw form.
Section 4 concludes the survey with observations regarding how reference
programs can grow and mature to meet the needs of the new economy. The
Appendix provides background information about the Survey, its sponsors,
and methodology.
Covering the year 2015, this report analyzes survey responses from 41
programs across more than a dozen industries. Virtually all the companies
we studied are based in the U.S. and Europe. Respondents ranged from
less than US$500 million in revenue to greater than US$10 billion. Program
staffing and budgets varied accordingly, with the largest companies
employing as many as 10 or more customer reference/engagement team
members, and the very smallest making do with less than a single full time
employee.
KEY FINDINGS
This year, companies continued to excel at the fundamentals of running a
professional customer reference program – and said they are aiming to
provide progressively greater value to the enterprise going forward. Indeed,
many top programs are well on their way to becoming strategically valuable
partners with the business, and have invested in systems and initiatives
designed to more closely align and integrate customer referencing and
advocacy with sales and marketing teams. These same programs are also
helping businesses adapt to the new Subscription Economy by focusing on
ongoing customer success and renewals, not just new-customer acquisition.
Many programs have room for improvement. We still see too many
programs that are unaware of the downstream business impact of their
customer referencing and engagement activities – and are thus unable to
channel and refine efforts to take advantage of the most valuable
opportunities. Programs also continue to show a need for measuring their
value and proactively communicating it to top management as well as to
customers. We hope this year’s survey will offer guidance for programs
seeking to mature and grow with the changing economy.
SECTION 1: EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 1
Overview 1
Key Findings 1
SECTION 2: KEY TRENDS AND
RECOMMENDATIONS 3
Key Trends 3
Recommendations 4
SECTION 3: SURVEY DATA 6
Profile of Respondents 6
Outsourcing 7
Top Performance Metrics 8
Reference Materials 8
How References Are Used 10
Responsiveness to Requests 11
Customer Participation 12
SECTION 4: CONCLUSION 13
Journey to Best in Class 13
APPENDIX: ABOUT THE SURVEY 15
Table of Contents

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Here are our top findings.
• Programs are doing well at producing assets. Programs this year
produced, on average, dozens to nearly 100 assets, ranging from case
studies to testimonials, and coordinated 140 live reference calls during the
year – a solid number.
• …But customer participation lags. Respondents reported that only about
27% of their top 100 customers were active participants in reference
programs, and only 12.5% of all customers participated. Best practices
would recommend participation of 80% of top customers, so programs have
a long way to go in terms of recruiting.
• Programs continue to be highly responsive to internal business
stakeholders by promptly fulfilling reference requests. 2015 fulfillment
percentages were impressive, averaging about 95% – slightly higher than in
past years, which averaged about 90%. One- to two-day turnaround times
were common for larger companies in this year’s survey.
• Larger programs do better at planning and collaboration with external
customers. The majority of programs say they try to consistently plan and
collaborate with customers to understand what activities they value most,
with larger organization doing so more often, according to the survey.
• Programs say they want to measure the right things. Similar to last year,
program managers said that measuring contract value of deals influenced by
customer advocacy and referencing was the most important “performance
metric” for reference programs.
• …Unfortunately, few actually do, with only 10% of programs saying
they know the extent to which references influence deals. This is a
surprisingly low number given the high value programs claim they place on
this metric. Indeed, it is perhaps the most critical “selling point” for the
existence and continued funding of customer advocacy and reference
programs. It would seem, however, that programs are more concerned with
counting the number of assets produced than in tracking customer
advocacy’s impact on revenue. (Our research actually shows that there is a
50% greater conversion rate when advocacy is integrated into the sales
process.)
• 85% of respondents either don’t measure or don’t know how satisfied
their customers are (both internal and external). This means that
programs have opportunities to better understand how they can add value to
customers and key stakeholders.
• Only 2.5% of programs quantify and communicate the value of their
company’s solutions to top customers. Here again lies a significant
opportunity for programs to help build loyalty and renewals – so critical in the
Subscription Economy – by demonstrating ongoing delivery of business value.
• Advocacy and reference programs could provide value to external
customers, but very few do. Reference programs are ideally positioned to
capture and share best practices and performance benchmarks with
customers, but less than 7% of programs in the survey say they regularly
gather this information, let alone share it with customers. We see this as
Why Customer References Matter
• Industry research shows that
90% of top sales performers
use references 100% of the
time
• Effective customer evidence
can reduce the sales cycle by
17-30%

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another great opportunity to drive retention by providing meaningful
information to customers and tracking value delivered.
• Many customer reference and advocacy programs are stuck on the
sidelines and primarily treated as a tactical afterthought. Few programs
have a seat at the table where strategic business decisions are made. This
is often because programs ironically do a poor job of promoting themselves.
More often than not, they approach stakeholders with “hat in hand” rather
than stepping forward with powerful, well-documented value messages that
resonate with business units.
• Programs lack alignment with internal stakeholders. We found that end-
users, such as sales teams, generally lack specific reference-related goals,
targets, incentives, or even a basic understanding for how advocacy and
references can benefit them. This reflects the continuing inability (or
unwillingness) of business units to align and partner with reference
organizations.
SECTION 2: KEY TRENDS AND
RECOMMENDATIONS
KEY TRENDS
Six years after our initial survey in 2009, corporate reference programs have
made significant strides toward improving operational efficiency and
increasing responsiveness to requests from company stakeholders. This
year, programs again delivered impressive volumes of reference collateral
and orchestrated a busy schedule of activities such as live sales calls.
The Subscription Economy
A major trend, which we first identified last year, continues to gather
momentum. This is the shift, in virtually every industry, toward buying and
selling products “as-a-service” through the Cloud. The rise of subscription-
based, on-demand business models – more broadly referred to as the
Subscription Economy – represents nothing short of a sea change in the
structure of the modern economy. One of the best-known examples is the
software industry, which is currently witnessing a major shift from packaged
software to SaaS-based “cloud subscriptions.”
We define the Subscription Economy as the fundamental transformation
from an economy based on high capital-intensive sales of products into an
economy based on services that you pay for as you use them, or as specific
outcomes are realized.
Delayed Revenues and Profits
A significant feature of the SaaS-base Subscription Economy is that revenue
for any given sale is spread over time. This reverses the traditional B2B
vendor’s expectation of receiving the bulk of the price of its products – and
almost all of its profit – upfront in a one-time sale. The move to a
subscription model means a delay in revenue and profit.

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Greater Focus on Retention
For sales teams – as well as customer reference and engagement programs
– the rise of the Subscription Economy will place significant new emphasis
on retaining customers after the sale, through multiple renewal periods, and
throughout the customer’s journey. In fact, this may be the only way the next
generation of B2B companies will be able to recoup sufficient revenue to
make a profit and stay in business. Reeling in new customers will always be
key to growth, but it won’t be the sole measure of success. Thus we will see
a new emphasis on customer relationships and their nurturing and
maintenance long after the initial deal is inked.
Focus on Business Outcomes and Early Customer Success
Business-to-business customer expectations have changed. Increasingly,
customers can walk away from a company’s products and services at a
moment’s notice, and there’s only one way to make sure that doesn’t
happen: focus relentlessly on helping customers achieve measurable
business outcomes. And customers increasingly want to see success early,
or they will reevaluate their subscription and look at cutting edge options not
available before.
Customers in Control
Although consumer-focused companies were the first to be swept up in the
Customer First Revolution, we’re now seeing this same shift in power
spreading into the business-to-business (B2B) arena. And we are seeing the
same advantages accrue to B2B companies that embrace the shift to
customers’ digital experiences—for example, by launching social channels
targeting key customer segments. To remain relevant, we believe reference
programs will need to catch up with this trend.
RECOMMENDATIONS
While it’s important to master the fundamentals of creating customer assets
such as success stories, videos and the like, we believe reference programs,
if they are to stay relevant, will need to move beyond their current role as
mere fulfillers of requests. They will need to become active and
knowledgeable partners with business leaders in a larger effort aimed at
improving customer engagement and ensuring customers are successful.
There a few indications from our research that programs are taking a seat at
the table where strategic business decisions are made, and where customer
success initiatives are crafted. Doing so will become more urgent as B2B
companies expand their offerings of subscription-based services that make it
easy for customers to defect and switch to the competition.
In the new Subscription Economy, ensuring customer loyalty and renewals
through a successful customer experience will be key growth and
competiveness. To justify their budgets, reference and engagement
programs will need to understand this new environment and learn how to
add value within it. How can programs tackle these new challenges? Here
are some steps that companies can take now to become more relevant in
the new economy.
Thriving in the Subscription
Economy
To thrive in the new Subscription
Economy, programs will need to
learn how to restructure operations
around improving the customer
experience, increasing account
retention, and crafting value
messaging that promotes loyalty.

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• Increase focus on day-to-day customer experience. As more B2B
companies adopt subscription-based business models, customer
reference and engagement programs need to focus more on monitoring
day-to-day customer experiences to ensure loyalty and confirm that
customers are successful at adopting their company’s solutions.
• Redistribute program emphasis to include both new customer
acquisitions and retaining existing ones. The survey showed that the
vast majority of programs (3.9 on a 1-5 scale), especially smaller
organizations, say they are focused primarily on gaining new customers. In
the Subscription Economy, however, greater attention needs to be paid to
post-sale customer retention and loyalty measures, as well as ways of
demonstrating early payback to customers.
• Become more strategic. To increase visibility and value, reference and
engagement programs need to get on the leadership agenda. This will
require gaining a better understanding the goals of executive stakeholders,
becoming conversant in issues like revenue growth and profitability, and
translating that knowledge into reference activities and messaging these
leaders care about.
• Do a better job of measuring business impact. In general, programs
in 2015 appear to be overly focused on handling the still-strong demand
for reference materials and activities such as live sales calls. But this
can frequently get in the way of the important task of gaining a better
understanding of the bottom-line impact of program initiatives and using
that information to add greater value to the business. Start by
developing 3 to 5 measures of success that matter to senior leaders.
• Understand the customer “journey.” Each phase of the sales cycle
requires different types and styles of content. Make sure you are aligning
and deploying the right content at the right time. Beyond the sale, programs
should re-align their content portfolio to remain relevant to customers as they
begin to use the product, realize benefits, and evaluate renewals.
• Fight marginalization. By consuming themselves with reactive order taking,
reference programs risk becoming marginalized as a mere support function.
Programs need to do a better job at promoting their value to the business.
And instead of meekly approaching stakeholders with “hat in hand,” program
managers should step up with powerful, well-documented value messages
that resonate with business leaders and top customers.
• Integrate better with sales organizations. To boost relevancy and value,
customer reference and engagement programs need to be tightly integrated
with the sales process and demonstrate with hard numbers how they are
helping the business close or accelerate more deals. Ideas include:
− Consistently include customer references in the sales process. For
example, one global software company required integration of customer
reference activities/assets into three of the five steps in its sales
process.
− Create incentives for sales teams to engage with your programs. At one
global technology hardware provider, sales reps are encouraged to
make marketing agreements part of every deal and provide bonuses for
hitting quarterly targets.

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SECTION 3: SURVEY DATA
PROFILE OF SURVEY RESPONDENTS
Figure 1. Company Revenue
Figure 2. Company Size (Number of Employees)
Reference Program Budgets and Staffing
In 2015, programs said their reference program budgets ranged from an average of
about $70,000 for the smallest companies to about $1.3 million for companies of
$10 billion or more in revenue. Staff ranged from about 1 employee for the smallest
companies and 4.5 for the largest (with some employing as many as 10 or more).
Figure 3. 2015 Average Total Annual Budget (by Company Size)
The largest reference programs in the
survey were staffed with four to five
full-time internal employees.

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Figure 4. Average Number of Internal FTEs
OUTSOURCING
Outsourcing – or relying on outside contractors and agencies – continues as an
important and growing part of reference programs worldwide, helping companies
moderate costs and scale rapidly to handle spikes in demand. In 2015, programs
devoted an average of 56% of their budgets on outsourced services.
Figure 5. Portion of Budget Allocated to Outsourcing
Again this year, writing and editorial services were the number one outsourced
item. Another category that is seeing more outsourcing is advocacy
management. Trusting outsourcing partners with a larger role in the program
allows programs to lower costs and dedicate funds to higher-value assets.
Figure 6. Type and Percentage of Referencing Activities Outsourced
In 2015, programs allocated more
than half of their budgets to external
contractors and agencies.

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TOP PERFORMANCE METRICS
What are the key performance indicators for customer reference programs in
2015? Survey respondents this year rated the relative importance of more than
40 performance metrics and identified the top 5 shown in Figure 7. As in recent
years, program managers in 2015 said that knowing the “total contract value for
deals influenced by references” was of critical importance. Yet despite
acknowledging the value of understanding reference’s impact on revenue, we
found that very few programs actually measure it.
Figure 7. What Reference Program Believe are the
Most Important Performance Metrics
REFERENCE MATERIALS: TYPES, INDUSTRIES AND
GEOGRAPHIES COVERED
Types of References Created
Reference programs produced a wide spectrum of customer-focused collateral
and managed a high volume of "live referencing" activities such as phone calls
and meetings with prospects, analysts and the media.
Figure 8. Top Reference Assets Created
(Average Number per Program)
WHAT TO MEASURE
What’s the best way to measure the
performance of your customer
reference program? Consider these
criteria—and don't forget to measure
them!
• Operations: Percentage of top
customers in reference
program; number of reference
customers; number of assets;
percentage of requests fulfilled;
SLAs
• Business Impact: Impact on
sales and number of deals
closed, value demonstration

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Industries Covered
Programs in 2015 reported getting more customer references from the
technology industry, a change from last year, when respondents drew more
heavily from the healthcare industry.
Figure 9. Top Industries Covered (in Order of Volume)
Geographies Covered
The majority of materials produced by reference programs – including customer
case studies, success stories, and white papers – featured customers operating
in North America and EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa). As in years past,
North America was most heavily represented.
Figure 10. Reference Customers by Geography
(Segmented by Company Size)
Despite acknowledging the value of
understanding the impact of
customer referencing and
engagement on revenue, very few
programs actually measure it!

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HOW CUSTOMER REFERENCES ARE USED
Influence on Sales
Reference managers surveyed in 2015 – as in previous years – said they have
little knowledge of the extent to which referencing activities helped close deals. In
fact, only about 17% of respondents in 2015 were able to say they knew the
impact of referencing activities on the value of sales contracts. Only 7% even
knew the percentage of all bids in which references were used.
Figure 11. Percentage of Programs that Know the Contract Value
Influenced by References
Preferred Collateral
Figure 12 summarizes the most frequently used collateral types for Sales,
Marketing, and Analyst Relations.
Figure 12. Top 5 Collateral Types Used for Sales, Marketing and Analyst
Relations (2015)
The most popular type of collateral used by sales are case studies (including ROI
studies) and live references (phone or in-person). This is consistent with last
year’s survey and not surprising given B2B buyer’s growing focus on tangible
business outcomes. Marketing relies more heavily on success stories and
testimonials, which could be expected as these two assets provide the kind of
“storytelling” that helps marketers build awareness, thought leadership, and buzz.
Respondents said that live references and customer wins were the most popular
types of collateral for analyst relations. Analysts prefer these kinds of customer
reference activities and content, which enable them to listen to the unfiltered
It is significant that programs have
been largely unable to measure and
track the impact of customer
referencing on revenue, a knowledge
gap that has not been sufficiently
addressed since this survey was
initiated in 2009.

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voices of real customers as well as provide accurate indicators of the inroads
companies are making in specific markets and industries.
Lifespan of Reference Materials
Figure 13. 2015 - Average Lifespan of Reference Materials in Years
(Segmented by Company Size)
RESPONSIVENESS TO REFERENCE REQUESTS
Fulfillment Efficiency
Responding to reference requests in a timely manner, as well as fulfilling a high
percentage requests, are widely seen as two of the most important performance
indicators. This year, programs of all sizes said they fulfilled a very high
percentage of reference requests, averaging 96% across all sizes of companies,
as shown in Figure 14.
Figure 14. Reference Request Fulfillment Percentage
Turnaround Time
Most programs in 2015 turned around requests in about 4 days, with the largest
programs reporting the fastest turnaround times (about 1 day).
Programs remain highly efficient at
the transactional level. This year,
programs said they fulfilled a very
high percentage – 96% – of all
reference requests.

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Figure 15. Average Lead Time to Fulfill Reference Request
in Days (2015)
CUSTOMER PARTICIPATION AND SATISFACTION
Customer Participation
How effective are programs in getting customers to participate in referencing
activities? In 2015 companies said between 11% and 20% of their customer base
participated in reference programs, as shown in Figure 16.
Figure 16. Customers in Reference Program as Percentage of
Total Number of Customers
Companies appeared to focus more attention on top customers – an
understandable preference – getting between 23% and 32% of their “top 100”
customers to participate in reference programs, as shown in Figure 17.
Figure 17. Percentage of ‘Top 100’ Customers in Program
Recruiting Reference Customers
Success in recruiting new customers remains a highly valued goal for reference
programs. In 2015, companies of all sizes recruited an average of 74 new
reference customers into programs during the year, with larger companies
recruiting about 100 new customers, and smaller companies about 66 on
average.
In 2015, programs reported that
between 11% and 20% of their total
customer base actively participated in
reference programs.

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SECTION 4: CONCLUSION
Once again, this year’s survey of customer reference and engagement
programs revealed a critical business function that continues to change in
response to evolving economic realities and business models. The most
advanced programs are setting the standard for what a modern customer
advocacy, reference, and engagement program should look like.
Nevertheless, too many programs continue to play only marginal roles in the
overall business – a situation that will need to change if these companies
hope to thrive in a subscription-based economy that increasingly requires
active customer engagement and continuous nurturing of relationships.
Steadily – though not rapidly enough, in our view – we are seeing programs
evolve from being reactive order takers to becoming true value creators and
partners with the business and its customers. To get to a higher level,
programs should start by measuring things that represent real value – such
as the impact references have on sales deals – and then routinely report on
the revenue and value generated. Simply counting the number of case
studies and videos produced isn’t enough.
To help the business thrive in the Subscription Economy, more customer
reference and engagement programs will need to move from a narrow
“reference-centric” outlook to a strategic “customer-centric” focus. This
means aligning with the business around common goals and particularly
around promoting customer success – the best way to maintain relevance in
an economy that will put an increasing premium on ensuring customer
loyalty and renewals through a great customer experience.
The failure of programs to connect referencing and advocacy with the bottom line
may present a stumbling block when it’s time for programs to justify funding and
demonstrate relevance to the business down the road. The irony here is that the
vast majority of programs openly acknowledge the importance of linking
references to business revenue and success – yet they consistently fail to take
steps toward measuring and tracking performance in this area.
THE JOURNEY TO BEST IN CLASS
Transforming your program into best-in-class is a journey, and many of the
recommendations provided in Section 2 can help you get there. Figure 18
depicts this transformation as a four-stage process or maturity model. These
maturity stages are based on a new model for delivering customer success
developed by Mainstay and Oracle in a recent book, Competing for
Customers: Why Delivering Business Outcomes is Critical in the Customer
First Revolution.
In this model, early-stage reference programs are called Satisfiers because
they are focused primarily on “filling orders” and do that job to the
satisfaction of the majority of line-of-business stakeholders. But for the most
part Satisfiers are invisible to senior management, they lack strategic value-
oriented business goals, and do a relatively poor job of communicating and
collaborating with sales and marketing teams – the main drivers of revenue.
RULE OF THUMB:
80% or more of your top customers
(top 5%) need to be active
participants in your program to have
significant impact on revenue.

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More mature programs are viewed as effective service providers, although
they may lack the strategic perspective needed to move the needle on
revenue generation and customer success. These Loyalist programs have
built a dedicated fan base among selected business stakeholders but only
rarely report to senior executives. And despite having won over a number of
individual business stakeholders, Loyalist programs are not systematically
and completely integrated with sales and marketing organizations.
Best-in-class customer reference programs are those we call Collaborators and
Partners. Frequently reporting to senior business leaders, Collaborators and
Partners focus their programs on enabling customer success and have created
systems for measuring performance against strategic business goals. These
value-creating programs work closely with sales on every major deal and track
customer success post-sales. Proactive by design, these programs drive
innovative customer-engagement and value-realization initiatives.
Figure 18. Reference Program Maturity Model

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APPENDIX: ABOUT THE SURVEY
BACKGROUND
Since 2010, the Annual Customer Reference Program Survey has been
conducted by Mainstay in partnership with the Center for Customer Engagement
and an affiliated group of customer reference professionals initially formed as the
Metrics Special Interest Group (Metrics SIG). The Metrics SIG’s mission is to:
• Develop a set of performance metrics that measure the effectiveness of
customer reference programs
• Conduct surveys to establish benchmarks for each performance metric,
document best practices, and uncover industry trends in customer
referencing
• Update the performance metrics and benchmarks annually
• Regularly share the results with Metrics SIG members
• Discover future trends and goals for leading reference programs
THE ANNUAL SURVEY
Conducted online, the Annual Survey gathers feedback from customer reference,
advocacy and engagement programs at leading enterprises worldwide. Working
with its partners, Mainstay analyzes the survey data, summarizes the results and
presents recommendations in an annual Benchmark Report. Results from the
2015 survey presented in the current report, are based on feedback from 41
leading companies. The report was published in April 2016.
The survey and report are designed to help reference programs benchmark
themselves against their peers, track performance over time, and provide best
practices to drive continuous improvements. Programs can also share survey
data with senior management to demonstrate their value and secure additional
resources. Finally, the survey can help new program managers build out
operations, determine program priorities, and decide what metrics to track and
investments to make.
This sixth annual survey tracks progress against previous years and analyzes
trends in key performance areas with the aim of helping companies of all sizes
effectively measure and communicate the value of reference organizations and
assets.
ABOUT THE CENTER FOR CUSTOMER ENGAGEMENT
The Center for Customer Engagement provides consulting and research services
for senior management as well as a global peer community and educational
services for customer engagement implementation teams. For more information,
visit www.centerforcustomerengagement.com

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ABOUT MAINSTAY
Mainstay is a leading provider of customer success and technology strategy
services to enterprises worldwide. For more than 15 years, Mainstay has been
delivering the evidence and insights businesses need to make the most of their
technology solutions. For more information, visit www.mainstaycompany.com.
FOR MORE INFORMATION
Abby Atkinson, chairperson, Metrics SIG
abby.atkinson@FireEye.com
Amir Hartman, Metrics SIG coordinator
amir@mainstaycompany.com