Monday, October 3, 2011

"The firm with the best customer advocates wins," according to Bill Lee, Executive Director of the 2012 Summit on Customer Engagement. "In the 2010s, winning firms will get increasingly proficient at cultivating customer advocates and integrating them into their operations."

Following are important tips suggested by Lee for doing so:

-- Use advocacy metrics in top level decision making.

Senior executives increasingly understand the importance of engaging more closely with customers and building advocacy. But they lack a framework and metrics for doing so. The widely popular Net Promoter Score (NPS) provides only a starting point--NPS tracks a stated intention to advocate for (or "recommend") the firm, but as it turns out, many promoters never actually do so. "Winning firms will move beyond just creating promoters," says Lee, "to engaging their promoters in advocacy efforts that spur growth--that's where solid measures relating advocacy to growth are being established." 

-- Integrate customer advocacy programs more broadly into marketing.

Advocates can dramatically improve marcom, branding, sales, product development, demand generation, social media, customer communities and the like. "In each case, customers provide your most compelling case for doing business with you," says Lee.

-- Shift the emphasis in hiring marketing teams.

Over the coming decade, winning firms will look less for internal people who are skilled at traditional product development, marketing and sales approaches--and look more for managers and executives who can bring customers into these processes. Rather than "marketing managers" they'll hire "advocate managers."

-- Shift the emphasis again from advocacy management to advocate experience.

"Winning firms will provide advocates with a terrific 'advocacy experience,'" says Lee, "and it will only start with delivering a great product and service." Beyond that, give your most prized customer advocates prominent platforms from which to talk about the great things they do (with your help), provide them with key contacts in their industry and within your firm, get them published, help them grow their professional stature and expand their networks. Firms like Salesforce.com that are already doing this are revolutionizing the value proposition they offer customers.

These and other customer advocacy issues will be presented at the 2012 Summit on Customer Engagement