From Asking for Customer References to Creating a Movement

Transcription

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. From Asking for Customer References to Creating a Movement By Maria Galindo, Customer Advocacy Manager, Apptio, Inc.

2 Maria took a start-up's customer reference program to a new level: instead of developing passive references, Apptio's customer advocates are creating a social movement in the market place. "We wanted our customers to be like Alumni at Stanford University," says Maria. "They don't have to be urged to advocate, they're so proud of their affiliation that they just do it." Increasingly, Apptio's customers are also "just doing it." To achieve this, Maria and her team focused on connecting with customers on an emotional level instead of asking customers to advocate as a favor, she's helping them build social capital, the raw material for creating movements in your market place. You'll learn how she did so with initiatives like Apptio's "Hero Stories Program" that turns customers into thought leaders. And a non-profit partnership that affords customers exclusive networking opportunities not found anywhere else in the industry. "We're offering customers the chance to tell their stories in their own way, and to be involved in something they believe in," says Maria. The resulting program boasts an 86% onboarding rate for invited advocates, and churns out a wealth of passionate-customer content including video testimonials, public relations opportunities, campaign enablement and in-person events. 1

3 From Asking for Customer References to Creating a Movement For years, CIOs have had limited choices of systems that help them manage their IT business in a way that adds the most value to their companies. That s where we come in. Apptio Technology Business Management (TBM) is an integrated suite of SaaS applications that combine analytics, industry data and processes for managing the business of IT. Our solutions are similar in this respect to what Salesforce.com delivers for salespeople and Marketo generates for CMOs. The concept has caught on. In the last six years, we ve experienced double-digit growth. We have more than 180 customers, one-third of which are Fortune 100 companies. It sounds like a small pool from which to draw references. But, as you ll see, it s large enough for us to create what we call, a movement. Something that we define as a collection of impassioned customer advocates who have joined us in our mutual mission to profoundly improve the value that IT organizations deliver. That s a goal bigger than ourselves. And it s a very powerful motivator in creating a movement. What follows is a discussion of our customer reference program system. It s made up of six elements and I ll talk about each in turn. But first, I want to point out the role that customer emotions play in creating a movement. Movements are based on an emotional connection For you to create a customer advocacy movement, you have to make an emotional connection with your customers. People will forget what you say. They ll forget what you did. But they will never forget how you make them feel. So you have to spend time really uncovering what their agenda is. What are their ambitions? And how can they benefit from what you re helping them do? At its core, this is a proactive mindset. So we ve developed a model of work around that which promotes proactive interactions with our customers. Operationalize and Measure Align to your Business Goals Activate Movement Spend Time Where It Matters For example, we are very proactive in onboarding our customers and making them feel part of something bigger. That in turn, fuels the growth of our program. Remember to Multiply Turn It Around Establish Your Currency We incorporate proactive elements into each of our six Reference Management components, (see Figure 1 on the right.) Figure 1: Appito s Reference Management System. 2

4 Component #1: Align your reference program with your business goals By aligning your program s activities with your executives goals, you establish a proactive foundation from the very beginning. You don t have to worry about being whipsawed about by having to change things up constantly. You also get the nod from your executive team, who will feel like you are on the same page as them. The alignment process means detailing what your goals are. And creating reference, campaign, product and marketing activities to support them. At Apptio, we look at what the company is doing over the next year. That includes the product releases, the industry verticals that we need to support and the adoption hallmarks among other things. This process helps us prioritize which stories to capture. So when the time comes, we ll be able to provide fully-trained, onboarded, movement-committed customers. I also take the time to identify who our stakeholders are. I m a one person team, so having support from our product marketing and management organizations, from our customer success organization and so on is critical. I ll need their cooperation to make my initiatives a success. So I have to know who my stakeholders are to help me sell my program to those people. For the reasons I cited, this is equally as important as selling your program to your customers. Component #2: Spend your time on what matters None of us have enough time to do everything. Customer reference teams are typically small and we could spend our entire days reacting to the demands of others. Therefore, we have to make choices about how we spend our time. For example, I ve found that ensuring a smooth and pleasant onboarding process for new customers makes them feel good about us. So every quarter I create a report of all the new customers and add them to the process. Figure 2 below illustrates how we ve streamlined our activities to focus on the ones that matter. 1 Account Closed Identify Stakeholders Send Welcome Package Schedule Onboarding Call Onboard and Initiate Figure 2: Streamlining processes to complete only value-add activities. 3

5 I want to talk a bit about the third step, Send a Welcome Package. Recall that we want to create an emotional connection with our customers to drive a movement not just run a reference program. So what matters in the branded Package that they receive is a reinforcement of that idea. The theme of the copy is that You didn t just buy Apptio, you joined a movement to transform IT. That s an example of how we use language to trigger a feeling of belonging with us, along with a commitment to join us in transforming the IT field. All our collateral supports this goal. For example, the Welcome Package includes: A welcome letter that describes what the movement is about. I introduce myself add my picture and hand sign it. So they feel like a real person is talking to them. A brochure describing our reference program s features, benefits, and the process for them to take advantage of various opportunities. A couple of case studies that we use as an invitation to say, Hey, these are other people that have shared their stories to help people like you learn about us and be more successful. Learn from their experience. And be inspired to follow their example by sharing your story when you re ready. Conceptually, our collateral asks our new customers to remember what it was like in the early stages of the buying cycle. Like how they needed to connect with other people to talk about their challenges and our solutions. What we want is for them to recall how it felt to be helped by some of Apptio s movement customers. And then we ask them to be that resource to others in their industry. And in so doing, to contribute to the IT community. Naturally, we reinforce the two-way nature of the movement relationship. Not only will our prospect learn a lot from our movement customer, our advocate will also learn something valuable from the prospect. Putting the interaction in this collegial context reinforces the feeling of being part of something bigger. A feeling that they re part of the Apptio community which is dedicated to making IT more effective everywhere. We use the onboarding call (step 5) to reinforce these themes. As well as to smoothly kick off our business relationship. 4

6 Component #3: Establish your social currency In order to build your movement, you need to go beyond getting customers to grudgingly agree to participate. Establishing your social currency will allow you to identify what your customers care about, what they need and what they will get in return for being active contributors to the community. Apptio s social currency, is primarily composed of networking opportunities, access to our product management team where they can influence future releases, and getting visibility in their industry through press mentions and awards. Our goal is to cultivate a passionate feeling for us and our solutions. Because when customers have that feeling, they devote themselves to our community, and our cause. Local User Groups Access to Product Management Press and Industry Analysts TBM Council Figure 3: The dollars and cents of social currency. Through conversations with our most active advocates, we learned that networking and collaborative knowledge were the most important things they need to be successful with Apptio. As a customer once put it: You ve already given me the technology to help me create a paradigm shift in my profession. The next best thing you can do is to match me up with people who are going through the same thing that I am so that I can take my IT organization one step further. Ensuring that we deliver on this promise is vital to the success of any reference program. So we focus a lot of time and resources on giving our customers the peer connections that they crave. We nurture their networking along with the synergy that comes from industry colleagues talking about mutual challenges and solutions. The tools listed in Figure 3 above drive the conversations that engage our customers. They make them feel like they re contributing to the greater IT good. Apptio is celebrated as a high-tech, high-growth SaaS company. However, as our CMO puts it: " " We re a philosophy company, and philosophies create movements. Apptio doesn t just deliver software, we help companies change the way they think and act. We re changing the lives of our customers so that they see their investments of money, people, and technology differently. We enable them to invest in more of what really matters to their business " 5

7 Philosophies also create communities, where no single leader stands alone. Six years ago, Apptio founded the Technology Business Management (TBM) Council to foster a community of leaders committed to managing IT like a business. What started as a simple mission among six thought-leading CIOs grew into Apptio s philosophy to help IT leaders succeed globally. The TBM Council is now a non profit organization where Apptio serves as the Technical Advisor. This partnership gives our customers exclusive networking opportunities not found anywhere else in the industry. This offers our customers the chance to tell their stories in their own way, and to be involved in something they believe in. Through our role as the Council s technical advisor, we continue to champion the TBM Council, helping to grow it from 238 people to over 1,100 members today. We also supported the first inaugural TBM Conference in November, drawing more than 400 CXOs and senior IT leaders together to discuss how they ve applied TBM in their companies. Component #4: Turn it around: Make it about your customers You know, sometimes customer reference requests can come across as Hello customer. Stop what you re doing, drop your day job, and please spend a day of your life to help me get richer by talking to my prospects. Instead, we make everything about our customers. We shift the discussion to an enticing offer that positively reinforces their feelings about participating with us. That philosophy drives the story themes of our Hero Stories Program: You joined a movement to transform IT. You re a leader with a laudable mission! You re are a contributor; someone who helps your peers succeed in IT. We recognize and showcase your innovation. It s not about what Apptio does, the real story is about what you do with Apptio. Transforming customer references into a movement is really about making their stories all about them. So you don t ask them to do a reference, or ask them to give an endorsement. You give them an opportunity to share their learning. This puts their reference-content contribution within the context of them helping others. And that makes them feel good. 6

8 But there s more to it than that. We also encourage customers to engage in various ways to promote their role and success at their own companies. Most of these people struggle all the time with making their role relevant. And sharing their outcomes helps them advance their own agendas within their organization. We give them a chance to say to their boss, I ve been invited to be a speaker about this case study featuring our success, and here s why. That gives them a chance to look good in front of their boss, coworkers and peers, and that always feels good. Component #5: Remember to multiply-amplify your customer stories This element is about capitalizing on your precious opportunities. It s about taking a single customer contribution and repurposing that content into as many artifacts as you can. You advance your movement by multiplying the effect of a single contribution. Figure 4 below shows how one piece of content can lead to a number of pieces. Blog/Social Media Campaign Press/Quotes Case Study Interview Figure 4: One piece leads to many to ripple your message across many channels. This is what I call Apptio s ripple effect. The ripple effect is about making the most out of a single customer contribution, to make sure their success story reaches its full potential by re-packaging it through different channels. It s important to have a plan before you publish the story, and whenever possible, to get the customer to preapprove publication before investing time and resources in developing the story. Then, we start off with an interview. From that we create a case study from it whenever possible. After that, we socialize it through a video, and align that content with a marketing campaign. Then, we promote it through our blog and social media. You create many artifacts from a single interview and publish it over and over again. You socialize it. But not only with your prospects. You also share it with your customers and your team.

9 Why is this so important? Because when you show others what your successful customers are doing, this fosters a feeling of belonging and being part of a community. And it helps your prospects and customers make an emotional connection. They may think things like, I have that very same problem here, or That solution approach would be perfect for us. Component #6: Operationalize and measure I m a one-person team. There are only 24 hours in a day. So in order to get a lot of work done, I have to operationalize. By that, I mean that I leverage automation technologies, applications and vendors to amplify my output. Now to do this intelligently, I define, establish and socialize processes. Then I use technologies and vendors to work those processes. That allows me to focus my time and budget on what s important. So don t hesitate to leverage CRM systems such as Salesforce to manage your customer data. Consider reference management systems to reduce the time you spend on manual processes and to help you scale your operations. Another example is our Apptio online store which includes backend fulfillment. The online store helps us with welcome package fulfillment, inventory management, as well as single order fulfillments. So when I want to send a customer a quick gift, I can send it out with a few mouse clicks. Finally, I want to talk about measuring your results. Earlier, I spoke about aligning your activities with your corporate goals. That s not only important from a planning perspective, but from a reporting perspective as well. Executives want to know what you achieved. Between the lines they re saying, You need to justify the time, resources and money you ve expended. If you want more, then prove to us why we should give it to you. And the only thing that will satisfy those hard questions is your ability to measure your actions and link them to revenue. So your applications and systems need to include the ability to capture data and present them in reports. When you do that, you ll be able to build and grow your reference movement program. 8

10 Bill Lee, Founder Turtle Creek Blvd, Suite 1801 Dallas TX CONSULTING We help firms create rock star (aka "marquee, " "champion," "MVP," etc) customer advocates and influencers who attract new buyers daily and dramatically increase growth. When it comes to developing high-impact customer relationships, all roads lead to Bill Lee. His energy, passion and excitement for the subject were evident from the first. His consulting was Jackie Breiter superb. Vice President, Customer Success & Flagship Program CA Technologies SUMMIT ON CUSTOMER ENGAGEMENT World s largest and most respected conference for professionals who run customer advocacy and engagement programs There s really nothing I ve seen like [Bill s] Summit in the Lisa Arthur country. Chief Marketing Officer Teradata Applications The Summit is a do not miss event" for you and your Rhett Livengood, team. Director Director, B2B Customer Engagement Intel SPEAKING Includes keynotes, executive workshops, implementation workshops, private webinars, etc. Content was excellent. I learned a lot, validated some things and also got some great ideas Highly recommended. Asim Zaheer Senior Vice President, Worldwide Marketing Hitachi Data Systems