Episode 7: What every customer advocacy program needs to succeed

Host  0:00  
Welcome to The Advocast, where we discuss all things customer advocacy, discover the latest trends, best practices, and tangible advice as we talk to some of the brightest and sharpest professionals in the industry. 

Host  0:14  
Hi Maria, nice to meet you. So great to have you on our Advocast podcast. It's really exciting to have you here today.

Maria Sturgeon  0:22  
Thank you, Maria. It's great to be here, and I appreciate this opportunity.

Host  0:27  
Maria, I was looking at your LinkedIn profile. We've met through CustomerX, and you're part of the customer community, customer marketing community, and you have been such an important part of this community for a long time. How did you, how did you start to be part of this universe?

Maria Sturgeon  0:47  
So I actually began my career... My first part of my career was spent in corporate communications. I started as an intern for a company called NCR in Dayton, Ohio, as part of my college experience. And then I actually left the company and went to a consulting firm in Chicago and got a call from a past coworker who ran the peer advantage program marketing and asked me to join as the operations manager for the peer advantage program where I really helped refine kind of the program playbook and key processes as well as handle manage the daily sales request and the marketing request, so I got to really learn what was most important to the sales motions, the sales needs, as well as critical to the analyst team, and really helping drive their market evaluations and really the brand for Teradata. And then eventually I was recruited, or promoted, rather, to the program director position, and as you can see, if my LinkedIn, I stayed a very long time, it was absolutely a wonderful program. Still is a wonderful program, considering one of the leading programs in the industry, because I had such great customers. I had wonderful customers, it was very hard to leave, and then I also, the program itself was the longest running marketing program in the business, because it was able to show clear value to senior leadership, but also, most importantly, you know, to the customers.

Host  2:10  
Well, we took a little bit about that little bit before, but can you go and tell me a little bit more about that, because I'm super passionate about this as well. Like, how did you manage to be so close to the sales, and how did you manage to be so close to your senior leadership, and how were you able to manage to showcase the results, which actually was driving revenue, like a lot of the people actually on your LinkedIn profile tell you, know, give you a reference, and they are talking really about how you drove the revenue for the company, and they really appreciated you so much. How you drove the program.

Maria Sturgeon  2:44  
Well, I think one of the most important things is for the advocacy team to position themselves. It's kind of an extension of the sales teams and also the key kind of marketing stakeholders, so you have to really position yourself as part of that sales motion, understand their needs when they need the reference and identify the right reference, so that's very important. Also, for example, for the analyst evaluations, I sat on the weekly calls for the analyst team and really became part of their team and understanding what was not only happening during that month but what was forthcoming, so you can make sure that you identify and align the best customers for that, but I think also, you know, as we're talking about the best customer reference platforms today, one of the things is one of the critical things is being able to refine your KPIs and align those with the corporate objectives and show how you're driving that revenue, so you need to be able to identify all those opportunities that you're really looking at and supporting and driving that revenue. How you're moving the company forward, whether it be cloud growth, ARR growth, new logos, or expansions, and you need to be able to show and articulate the clear value. Same thing with the marketing stakeholders, you know what critical evaluations are in place, and what is your consent company considered a leader in? Because of the customers that gave you reviews, you know what media opportunities are really resonating with the marketplace because of those dynamic customers. You know what customer stories are really resonating as well. So, again, I think it's that ability for the advocacy team to be positioned as really a key extension of the sales motion, the marketing stakeholders, etc. and really driving that value. I think that's the key differentiator. You're not siloed into really just transactional work or giving a reference, which I think has changed from, you know, the early days of advocacy,

Host  4:46  
And you talk about expansion, another trend, and this year we're going to meet each other at Customer X, and it's called Accelerate. Like, what are you looking for in this event?

Maria Sturgeon  4:57  
So last year was my first year at. Ending. I actually had the opportunity to present and also be on the steering committee. It was fabulous. I appreciate the opportunity. I am just looking forward to be back with people to see the people I've been collaborating with and sharing insights for years, but also meet new people as well. I know there's going to be new people there. I've been on the Slack communities, and so excited about the topics, learning, you know, new things, seeing the keynote speakers. So, I think you can never, you can never learn enough. And I think this is the best customer conference of the year, especially if you are a seasoned professional. It's very worth, you know, worthwhile, worth your time. But most of all, it's that people aspect, because you know, Jeff and Dana and Kaylee and the team, just wonderful people. They make an effort to plan, you know, wonderful content. So, I think it's just a world-class event.

Host  5:51  
Yeah, yeah. And I think the community aspect, that this is something which I'm always looking forward to, and just be together with the seasoned professionals, or even helping the new ones, like being able to share the knowledge and experience, and create these connections, which I feel like when we have these face-to-face events, then we carry on over LinkedIn and Slack, like there are so many channels where I feel like I'm always connected in a way.

Maria Sturgeon  6:17  
No, absolutely. I mean, it's not surprised to you. I unfortunately lost my position at BMC in April, but these were this community were the first people that really reached out to me and have been my cheerleaders along the way, so it's been very heart, you know, heartfelt, heartwarming to know that they really have been looking out for me. People have been sending me jobs, people have been sending me feedback, posting on my LinkedIn, so it is really a community. I mean, it's obviously it's really like Morgan family, I mean the customer marketing advocacy professionals, really more like a family to me.

Host  6:52  
Same, yeah, amazing. And I want to shift gears, and I want to learn something from you about platforms, so we have prepared a few questions about the platforms, and I just really want to know what you think about it. Do you think it's possible to build a strong advocacy platform that I mean program without the platform, because a lot of the times the budgets are limited, or last year I feel like was the hardest, like we've seen so many changes in the IT world and cuts, and I think it just shook.. I don't know, I mean it feels like it shook all of our world. So I'm just wondering, like, what do you think when there is a company, should they invest in advocacy programs and EBS like, should they invest into a platform or can they go without it?

Maria Sturgeon  7:46  
So I say 100% absolutely, they need to invest in a platform now, whether they're spending budget for one of the vendors who are known for their customer reference platforms, or they're able to partner with their IT organization or consultants to build a platform, they need something, you know. When I was at Teradata, we, for many years, had a homegrown platform that was absolutely incredible. I mean, I would showcase this to a lot of the vendors to show them, you know, how our consultants built this, and we had the same consultants over many years who are very dynamic, reactive to our needs, and able to build a system we wanted. However, we were never able to track revenue and some of the clear KPIs we track today, and we also migrated to Salesforce as a company, so we needed something more compatible with Salesforce. That's why we began kind of an extensive process of looking at vendors in that space, a platform allows you the ability to be really more strategic in nature, I believe, versus transactional. If you don't have a platform to really track your daily activities, track the customer's history, their reference profiles, the reporting nature of it, then you're spending hours in transactional activities. I know I keep using that word, but it's really creating manual work for your team, and you can't function on that and elevate your program and really be a strategic partner to anyone if you're constantly just populating Excel spreadsheets, running reports, the same reports all the time, and pulling data from other sources, because the reference platform really allows you to have that central centralization of the information you need to really do your daily jobs and really elevate your program and move forward.

Host  9:37  
I totally agree. I mean, making and building the manual reports can take so much time, especially if it's in a complex IT environment, which I think many of our customers are, or many of the people using advocacy. It's just, and it's not the most, yeah, rewarding in a way. If a tool can do it way better and essentials way. Can track way more KPIs, and it's connected to the real, real-time data.

Maria Sturgeon  10:04  
Yeah, I, it's funny, because I think I took our homegrown platform for granted for years at Teradata, because it was so sophisticated, and you know, just gave us a lot of the information we needed, but I never thought I'd be so passionate about speaking about customer platforms, but I really am, because I know that the true detail have been at companies where we've done it well, and we really use the platform the way it should be used. I've been a company that didn't do it so well, and it really, really hurt the team. It really didn't position us for success.

Host  10:38  
Yeah, I agree. Yeah, and I've seen many companies trying to do a home homegrown platform, and honestly, they didn't succeed always. So, congratulations to Teradata, because I think it's a huge effort, and it's really.. it's not simple, like, right? Like, you make it sound simple.

Maria Sturgeon  10:58  
It's not simple by any means. We just have fabulous, like it consultants and architects that were able to build something, but that's also an investment, you know, you're paying those contractors to invest, but I think the initial investment of the platform up front, no, typically is a chunk of change, however, being able to keep that platform ongoing, and then you know, pivot when needed, upgrades, etc. That is not as much as the initial investment. So, again, I think it just positions your team for success and growth, and the key is focusing on really how it elevates the program and how it really elevates your customers. You want them to have a seamless approach to everything they do, and really this customer reference system, it needs to be integrated with other systems too, so that's a key component to keep in mind, so for example, if you have an external customer, let's say enrollment website, a gratitude, you're using another platform for gratitude system, you have a sales content system, you need to be thinking of how these platforms are all working together, because again, if you don't have a platform that will integrate with the other platforms, you're creating manual, manual transactions for your own team, as well as really the customer. It's not really looked at as professional by the customer, so you need to be thinking like internally what's the best experience and externally what's the best experience

Host  12:22  
Great advice. Thank you. Absolutely great. And let's imagine we've got the budget. I'm building a customer advocacy program. I want it to be great. What do I do on the day one? Like, what is your suggestion to do on the day one? You already mentioned, like making sure I position it well internally and externally, it's not just the internal part. So, I wonder, how would you go about that?

Maria Sturgeon  12:49  
I think if you've secured the budget, there's two things you need to do at the same time. Number one is make sure you have a very comprehensive requirements document available for the vendors that you're going to benchmark and evaluate. They need to understand your program, they need to understand what makes your program unique, because not all programs are created equal. So, you may have some things you track on a daily basis that you need them to track, so you know they need to understand what your team does from a daily basis and what your needs are, you know, what are you, where are your KPIs? How will you track them? Can this platform do that? So that's one thing, and then also you need to assemble a cross-functional team. The advocacy team does not need to be the only people in the room evaluating this. The important thing is, have your, you know, have someone, it from it, so my team have a Salesforce architect. If you're using Salesforce Soma team, or whatever your CRM platform is, you need to have an expert on that, perhaps more than your marketing office group. Have them all of us need to work together, because especially if you're not a technology expert, they will be able to ask questions that you're not able to ask of the vendor, and they will be asked to implement a lot. They will be a key player in making the successful transition to this platform, so they need to, the internal team needs to also be understand the program, the value of moving this platform forward, and then I think those, the two things need to occur at the same time.

Host  14:26  
Okay, what I heard is number one, make sure everything is really well documented, we know what we're doing, but then the second part is like get people in the same room, which is outside of your core team, like at the marketing presenting, get the sales for architect, like, make sure that there are technical people there as well, so we have creating requirements, which cannot be fulfilled, so it's again like super complex, super complex task, and what do you think are the three must have kind of three must have. Of features which the customer advocacy platform cannot go without,

Maria Sturgeon  15:05  
So I think number one is the platform needs to encompass customer profiles, and they say that I mean accurate, the ability to accurately identify what they can speak about as a reference, it's key to point out what some people forget, they might say, well, you, we have a customer database, we know what they've purchased, what they've purchased, and what they can speak about are often two different things, because they may not be using a product yet, or they may be having an issue with the product, so you need to be able to clearly identify what products, what solutions, what partners they can speak about, what business results, so you can quickly react to a reference request when it comes in, along with that. In terms of the profiles, you need to be under, understand what activities they want to participate in as advocates, and who those key advocates are, so that that's critical. Number two is I think you need to again identify your KPIs that are aligned with business objectives, you need to be able to track that in your reference system. So, the example I used previously, that we had a wonderful reference system at Terry Dub, but we didn't have the ability to track the revenue influence, so that was critical to us in choosing a vendor that could do that, and then also do you know customizations of that, so if we were looking for AR growth, specific cloud growth, if we were looking for growth in one industry, you know, we wanted to look at all of that, as well as the act, the opportunities we were influencing. So that's number two. Number three, I'll go back to the API integrations. You need to make sure that when you choose a vendor, if you have other platforms, you know, definitely put that in the requirements document. Tell them what other platforms you have and making sure they can have API integration to those platforms, because again, there's nothing worse than then isolating your platforms from working together and creating more manual work for your team, and again, I go back to this is all about the customer, so you need to have a seamless customer experience, and having all those platforms work together really delivers that.

Host  17:12  
Wow, thank you. Because thank you so much. Because what I heard is like definitely important to have number one is to have customer profiles, which I didn't know that the database isn't enough, but I like the idea that you really need to know, like in depth, it's not just okay, this is what our customers have deployed, but this is what they can talk about, these they can speak, go and kind of act upon, but some other activities they say no to, and then have them bring the profiles. I mean, yeah,

Maria Sturgeon  17:44  
I think one of the brilliant things, too, about being able to encompass the profiles, especially, is you know, get sales and your customer success teams involved in being proactive updaters of the profiles. A lot of times, they're not going to go out there directly, but have your team schedule those one to one, you know. I need two to 15 minutes of your time to walk through the profile on a quarterly basis. We need to make sure these are accurate, because we don't want to approach your customer with a request that's not relevant to them. It's embarrassing for the company, it's embarrassing for us. We like to go with them, you know, ask them to talk about something they want to speak about, and can speak about as a great customer, so it's a win-win situation. So, really, you know, they can update a lot of those profiles while the systems allow them to update those profiles. So, again, that's another, I think, trust building opportunity. There

Host  18:40  
Totally, and I like how you mentioned that it's a regular check-in, and it's not like an hour-long conversation by just a 15 minute check-in with the customer success, with the sales rep, with the account manager, just making sure that the data is relevant, and it's not - it's not - we are asking a customer something that they cannot kind of do for us, and we couldn't do,

Maria Sturgeon  19:03  
Yeah, and this is especially relevant and important if you have a new member of an account team or new customer success manager, because you need to show them, you know, right away where you have this customer information and how they can help, because it helps them too, and it helps get them educated on the customer, and again shows the important, the importance of the partnership with customer advocacy.

Host  19:25  
I like it a lot. And then the KPIs, of course, it's super important. And you mentioned revenue, like revenue influence. When did you manage to kind of be able to track that? And was it easy, or how did you, how were you able to finally succeed to kind of measure this super critical KPI, and the second question was, it appreciated by your senior leadership?

Maria Sturgeon  19:50  
So, when we actually switched over to the vendor at Tear Data that was managing our new system, I think I can say it, we use point of reference, the reference edge to. Rule, we were able to track the revenue influence. We had a great customer success manager on their end who really helped us develop the reporting we needed. We also had a wonderful, and again, this is back to the partnership with it. We had a wonderful person from it who actually sat on the weekly calls with us with the point of reference team, and so she helped refine a lot of the reports we needed, and absolutely, 1,000% it was appreciated by senior management. I mean, it's really a way to help elevate what our program is doing, so not only senior management, but just the account reps, and saying, okay, we helped close these references for your team, so they really, everyone appreciated it, and I think, most importantly, our team was just so happy to be able to say we are moving this company forward, and we know that, and this is why, so you know, again, if you're not, when you get up in the morning, if you're not passionate about your job, it's just make or break day, and so I think having this information readily available at our fingertips versus spending hours trying to manually calculate that really helped really propel our, you know, our program forward and make it made us be a strategic player in closing the sales motions.

Host  21:19  
I love it, and I love that you managed to really close the loop on this one, because sometimes I feel like the numbers, it's like, is it the correct number, is it not the correct number? How much of the pipeline are we influencing? Like, there can be a lot of conversation around those topics, so for me, like, managed to really like proof point the data consistently, and then the senior leadership saw the value and appreciated it, because I think that's that's a huge thing. And congratulations to you, Maria. I think you've done a fantastic job, and it's not an easy job to do. And I feel like once, once you're able to do that, then also the investment into the program, the conversation is very different, because it's so tangible, like I feel like the topics, the KPIs, the outcomes are so tangible, because, as you said, you're moving the company forward, you are helping the company to grow in a very tangible way.

Maria Sturgeon  22:16  
Yeah, absolutely. And I think the other critical thing, too, and thinking about what customer reference system you select and implement is the ability to scale your program and refine those KPIs as needed, so for example, you mentioned you know the getting that revenue influence and the numbers that management wants, so when you change your objectives every year, how can that platform deliver the reporting you need to move forward, so that's something to keep in mind when you're looking at those KPIs and those metrics.

Host  22:49  
And I wonder, like, if you think that once we have a platform, we implemented the platform, is education and awareness of these processes to the stakeholders is an important part of the success of the program.

Maria Sturgeon  23:06  
Absolutely, I think there's an initial rollout plan, so I would say you need to partner, partner, partner. You need to partner with corporate communications, you need to partner with your learning folks, you need to partner with the go-to-market team, etc. to really deliver and announce why the platform, like the launch of the program, and why it's important to them. So, for example, we drafted a program launch communication that was authored by the CRO and the CMO, talking about the importance of this program, the platform that was launched, and the value on how basically the platform would help accelerate sales motions forward. So it really, really, I think that was powerful, because it wasn't just coming from us, it was coming from key leadership on why this is driving the business forward. I worked with the learning teams in advance to design brief modules on everything, from this is how to submit a request, this is how to nominate your customer to be a reference. So, one to two minute videos, so that was super important. And then I worked with the go-to market team to really go to market and corporate communications to really say, these are all the channels we're going to target for the communications, and then you know, draft the content for them, and then I also, at the same time, I think there's an ongoing education plan, so you know, new hires are inundated, innovative things when they get on board. It is important to be in the new hire workshop. Make sure you are talking about the program. If you have other parts of your extended team that complement the program, like for example, executive briefing center, you can talk about them all together, but also what I would do is get the download every month from HR of new sales hires, and then marketing folks as well, because if they need licenses to the new tool, that's important to get them on board, but just send them a brief communication saying this is the program. Am this is the value to you. You may not need this now, but please keep this on file. And then I would actually send them a calendar invite to business hours they could accept if they wanted. I would say probably 80% accepted. Some may not, but they a lot of them would keep the email and then contact that contact us when they needed the reference. And then, so that's just one stream, and then also make sure those videos, or the sales aids, job aids are embedded within Salesforce, within your sales content system, within your corporate online university, so they have that access at their fingertips, because remember, they're not going to go, every person's not going to go to the same place to get their communication, to get their education, so you need to have making sure those tools are there for them and that they're all updated as well.

Host  25:48  
Maria, I'm so impressed with the knowledge and like the complexity and the thoughtfulness of every part of the business, which you have been involving through, like being the director of customer marketing, like making sure that everybody knows about your program. I think you used your corporate communications experience to the max, like making sure it's even for the HR comms team, learning team, like the sales platforms, you use videos to educate when people are being onboarded, or there were new hires. I love.. I haven't heard about such a complex program yet, so I'm super impressed, and I think everybody who goes to customer eggs and wants to know, like a lot more, or very, very much in depth about customer marketing programs, they should talk to you.

Maria Sturgeon  26:48  
Absolutely, I'm always... I mean, I can tell you, I speak to people every day. I love being in the customer advocacy world. I love talking about it. I love talking about the successes. You know, I've had some failures along the way, and I.. you know, I can probably share with you why those were failures as well, and what was needed to pivot. So, again, I'm looking forward to being at the event and just really meeting new people, understanding their challenges as well, and their successes as well, because you can always learn something new.

Host  27:16  
Amazing, thanks. And I have just very last question, and that is, if you could put anything on a T-shirt or a muck, which would be regarding customer marketing, customer advocacy, what would it be? It can be funny or can be serious, can be anything in between.

Maria Sturgeon  27:33  
So, I think two things come to mind. One is, I, you know, very simplistic statement, you know, it all begins and ends with the customer. Now, at the beginning of the day, when I get up, I think that at the end of the day, when I go to sleep, like, I think that normally I'm thinking about work things when I go to sleep, but then I think also internally, being from Kentucky, my love of the Kentucky Derby, translating this into, you know, cross the finish line with customer advocacy, because we want the internal folks to realize how we can really take them, whether it be driving their sales motion, driving the OS evaluations, immediate opportunity. We want them to understand that how our sales accelerators, you know, customer connectors, revenue influencers. So I think those two things come to mind.

Host  28:17  
And what the sentence would look like on a cup with the Derby?

Maria Sturgeon  28:22  
With the Derby, well, I think it would go back to whatever your customer program name was, and somehow, like a logo with, like, crossing the finish line, like crossing the finish line with customer advocacy, and then incorporate that back to your program, because I just like to, you know, again, that's like that's a, it's associated with like winning and the greatest moments in sports. So I just want to, you know, show the sales teams how we can really help drive and propel the sales motions forward.

Host  28:55  
Thank you so much. Thank you so much. It was such a fantastic conversation. I learned so much from you and I'm sure, like, if there is any questions which we cannot answer, like, I'm definitely will will reach out and to learn about the successes and even the failures, the things which you already have tried and succeeded in, and I love the last finishing sentence, like crossing the line and be successful in helping the companies to drive more business. Thank you so much.

Host  29:33  
This episode was brought to you by Wings for You, helping global B2B pet brands unleash the power of their customer's voice wings for you customer stories and advocacy programs help you deepen customer relationships, increase retention, and close more deals faster.