#GetAmplified Podcast Series 3 episode 3
Gosh, where do we start?! This is such a huge topic. With many years’ experience in Customer Advocacy on her side, it was a pleasure to learn from Polly, and hear thought provoking ideas on how to get the best results from your Advocacy Programme.
We thought we’d help share these valuable insights in this blog.
Listen to the full #GetAmplified podcast here
With 25 years’ experience in B2B tech marketing, Polly has become an expert in her field.
Polly’s experience includes leading customer advocacy for VMware and working in customer advocacy for one of the top ten software vendors globally. These roles have been a real eye opener and highlighted the importance of using the customer voice. Polly is enjoying her current role leading marketing globally for Retail Directions.
So, what is customer advocacy?
Sam wonders if it’s more than just colouring in? Sorry Polly!
Polly explains that Customer Advocacy has changed so much over the years and has been referred to as customer references, customer marketing, customer communications, case studies, and more.
Polly succinctly sums it up as,
“Using the voice of those that have, to earn the trust of those that could.”
Rethink customer advocacy
There’s now an opportunity to flick the switch on advocacy
Polly explains,
“The traditional way has been to go to your advocates, to your happy customers, and ask for a case study and to talk about some key things that are really important to you. But it’s evolved and we should be asking how can we add value to your business? It’s about stopping asking for those favours and repositioning advocacy, as a vendor, to how can we help you.”
This approach widens the opportunity on how you amplify those stories. It’s about storytelling. Not just the ‘why’, it’s the ‘how’ as well.
According to Polly, there’s three different agendas or levels we should be mindful of when speaking with a customer, and it’s important that we dovetail into the customer’s goals.
The three levels are:
- Company
- Team level
- Individual level
Vicky couldn’t resist whooping around the team level discussion.
“We’ve just finalised a case study with Okta and one of their big challenges is about hiring talent. There is such a war for talent in the tech industry currently that they are – like all the hyper growth tech companies that we’re working with – really trying to attract talent. It helps Okta tell their story. The case study is for them.”
It seems apparent that when a team is proud of what they have achieved together, they want to share it. Sam reflects that it comes back to the power of why. And highlighting the value of doing something.
Lessons learnt
Sam is intrigued to know what lessons Polly has learnt in her career. Polly sums these up as:
Collaborate and plan
You have to collaborate with so many teams to raise awareness with what you do in a Customer Advocacy role. You have to help the organisation understand the opportunity that advocacy brings.
You need to have your finger on the pulse of what’s going on in the business.
Know who you’re targeting
Think about who you’re trying to target with customer evidence.
Try to amplify the voices of multiple levels. Don’t stick with one individual. Telling the story from multiple perspectives is important.
Cross Team Alignment
Move away from point-based requests. Educate your organisation to not submit last minutes requests like “Oh, we haven’t got a speaker for our event tomorrow!”
You have to get yourself in those planning meetings early on.
Learn when to push back
Having that internal sync and alignment on what evidence you want to get from your client was a lesson learnt for Polly. She says,
“Sometimes you need to push back. You can’t get customers to read your script, they want to tell theirs.”
Protect the customer
Vicky sums it up nicely that Customer Advocacy has a duty to look after and protect the customer.
Polly agrees,
“Totally! Avoid customer burnout. When you have a small group of advocates, you can annoy them quickly.”
Why should organisations invest in Customer Advocacy?
Great question from Sam. There are many benefits, but ultimately, it’s about increasing sales and closing deals faster. Real life stories help customers make a decision more quickly.
Once you start to quantify and measure the impact you have with Customer Advocacy you can start to get executive buy-in. Being able to measure ROI is one way to do this.
Customer advocacy also offers huge value internally, if you consider individuals and teams as internal customers.
Three key takeaways
With so much great information, Polly provides her three key takeaways:
- Think about your customers’ agenda, not yours
- Think about the definition of a customer. It could be internal, it could be a team.
- Customer advocacy is a dynamic and continual process. Be with your customer for life. Their story changes all the time and be prepared to update your version of their story. It is transformation in process.
The wrap up bit
So, what does great TeamX™ mean to Polly?
“It’s about people pulling together with a common goal. It’s saying that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
It’s that family mentality in the workplace that makes you feel confident that someone’s got your back and you’re doing the right thing.”
Thank you, Polly!
If you enjoyed this podcast, you might like this conversation with Andy Bacon:
There is a catalyst to sales and marketing alignment (buzzsprout.com)
