“Turning happy customers into the best sellers, because the reality is no one trusts vendors anymore.”

That was the north star 🌟 that guided Cache Walker across his path to drive a business transformation and scale his Customer Advocacy Program at his latest company. When he set up the goal of getting a customer story for every customer, he knew a journey full of challenges was ahead. As a department of one, he couldn't do it alone; he needed to find partners who would help him build a strong program that would realistically enable him to achieve that ambitious vision.

More — More case studies. More customer quotes. More referenceable customers. Even more marketing materials. Although he has nearly a decade of experience in customer marketing, Cache can't remember a time in his career when people ever said, "We have enough references, we have enough case studies, we've got enough customer goodness." In one year since the beginning of this initiative, his company received 830 customer assets and 330 new advocates. 

Even though the executive leaders' encouragement played a part in his decision to create a story per customer, the real motivation behind his desire was driven by another belief.  "Data and stories help everyone know the customers better, help the product improve, and empower the organization to serve the customers better." Cache is sure that change management becomes more straightforward through the lens of customer stories.

For example, when sales account owners inevitably change, and new reps have the chance to pick up the account, they see the associated customer stories and get up to speed before they onboard new customers. So, with this clear idea in mind, he started the laborious partner selection process.

The following guidelines primarily drove the selection:

1. He couldn't simply throw money at the problem because he had a smaller budget than the previous year.

2. The last thing he needed was vendors that consumed his effort.

On the contrary, if he wanted to show positive results —which would need to be demonstrated as soon as possible because his company was about to go public— it was imperative to work smarter, to choose the right partners not just to fulfill the firm's current needs, but also build towards a sustainable advocacy program that would last well into the future. 

"The people we work with make a difference. It's what allows you to be successful," Cache guarantees. After what he calls a budget-conscious decision, Wings4U,  SlapFive,  and  UserEvidence became part of the organization's equation for success.

While SlapFive is a customer marketing and advocacy platform that tracks the entire journey of your advocates and automatically demonstrates your program's impact on revenue, UserEvidence is a tool characterized by better leveraging the voice of your customers at scale. They help create case studies and testimonials or aggregate statistics from those customers that you can use in your marketing campaigns. 

Wings4U completed this unique collaboration through the service of Staff Augmentation. Cache needed an expert with the right know-how to plug into his team and start work straight away. Martin Galtieri was the perfect match. His technical knowledge met the program's needs, and his years of experience made him become, using Cache's words, "the magic sauce in the middle, spinning the wheels and connecting it all."

The Project

"I could never get there solo. Everybody contributed at a high level to make this happen."

                                                                            — Cache Walker

Three factors defined the company scenario. Firstly, the industry. As a cybersecurity organization, they knew better than anyone the importance of safeguarding their customers' data while designing and executing this project. Secondly,  the approach needed to align with their diverse and varied customer base that spans many different industries, company sizes, and roles. Last but not least, like most companies, they faced limitations on technical resources. 

"This wasn't magic; it was just processes. A multi-step process," Cache proudly says. Every week, Cache and Martin met to design what the solution should look like. They combined technical and advocacy knowledge in order to create a unique environment that contributed to the organization's customer-focused culture. Cache wanted systems and processes that integrated and worked cohesively together because he was convinced the pieces would become more than the parts alone.

Salesforce’s layout design, data flow building, models, and field creation were required for this hyper collaboration of partners to achieve an accurate 360-degree view of the customers. The first stage of this project consisted of looking at data and current processes, ensuring the integrity and consistency of that data. Then, the creativity gained prominence during Cache and Martin's conversations, and the "What ifs…?" were endless.

What if we plug information from UserEvidence to SlapFive? This integration via APIs enabled automation to push information from assets, surveys, and advocacy preferences, creating rich customer profiles that combined those preferences with their company data and permissions. This supported the need to dynamically segment the customer-base in order to quickly and easily find customers to support GTM and engagement initiatives across the company. In this way, they accomplished the first achievement: scaling in production and taking advantage of UserEvidence’s potential.