In the software industry, customer references are vital for revenue growth, but at the same time, the reference request can become a big hassle and source of inefficiency for the salesperson. To address this customer reference dilemma, companies need to refine the entire process of recruiting, qualifying, and maintaining customer reference information so that good reference matches surface within each opportunity. To be on the cutting-edge in the industry, a software solution provider should have deep domain experience and develop products that are intuitive to use and highly configurable to meet the specific needs of advocate programs. A vendor also must listen to customer feedback and refine its products to meet client requirements as quickly as possible. Last but not the least, client service and satisfaction should be in a company’s DNA, then and only then will a software provider flourish.
Denver-based Point of Reference® is one such firm that is flourishing and gaining prominence as an essential component of a CRM solution. The universal anxiety felt by B2B salespeople when they cannot easily find the most relevant customer references in a timely fashion led to the birth of Point of Reference in 2003. “Could I speak to some of your references,” is one of the most important questions in the buyer’s journey, but one that launches a lot of inefficient activities that often fail to produce the desired result. With the advent of Point of Reference and its targeted solutions for customer reference management, that chaos can be transformed into tranquility, a repeatable process that is a pre-requisite for growth.
Point of Reference is a B2B customer advocate management software and services company that assists businesses with centralizing customer advocate information and content such as videos and case studies. It also automates for clients many processes including searching, requesting and sharing compelling customer perspectives with buyers to boost win rates.
Flagships offerings and Support Services that are Winning Clients’ Trust
The flagship offering of Point of Reference is ReferenceEdgeSM, the only Salesforce® native customer reference application present in the market today. ReferenceEdge delivers a sophisticated and easy-to-use app that automates all aspects of the reference process. It automates the reference recruiting workflow, and automates the maintenance of customer reference information to ensure reliable search results. All the customer data and reference management functionality are seamlessly accessed through Salesforce CRM. The superiority and efficacy of ReferenceEdge can be gauged from client feedback.
“Lowering the barrier of entry of any additional technology is extremely important for user adoption. To have something like ReferenceEdge that is an extension of the Salesforce UI helps with the adoption. We fell hook, line, and sinker for ReferenceEdge. Our users don’t typically know it is a different application.” -Erin Traudt, Sr. Marketing Manager, Global Customer Engagement, Amazon Web Services
Apart from ReferenceEdge, they also have expertise in delivering supplemental staffing services, program consulting services, and content development services. The organization empowers its clients to become more proactive, strategic and align advocate program activity with company goals through clear attribution of program activity to revenue influenced.
Distinctiveness Acknowledged by Industry Leaders and Clients
- Recognized among the “20 Most Promising Salesforce Solutions Providers” by one of the leading technology magazines for two consecutive years (2016 and 2017).
Point of Reference holds a distinction of being the only company to offer a Salesforce native application and is also among one of the first to receive Salesforce1 Mobile and Lightning ready designations from Salesforce. They also take pride in having introduced peer-to-peer request management functionality to streamline the request process and scale programs. Exemplary user experience has received accolades from its clients as well.
“To say that I would probably start losing my hair without ReferenceEdge would be an understatement. Having all of this knowledge in one place lets me sleep well at night.” – Daniel Palay, Manager, Global Customer Programs at Elastic
“Sales is extremely happy about the turnaround time on a reference request and how easy it is for them to work with each other to complete reference approvals.” – Alyse Chiariello, Director, Customer Marketing, InContact
Fanatically Customer-Focused North Star of the Organization
David Sroka is the President & CEO of Point of Reference. He has over 20 years of experience dealing with and solving the customer reference equation. During his career, he has worked as a professional services manager and held positions in sales, marketing, and technical training. His vast experience has given him first-hand knowledge of all facets of customer reference needs and challenges. Sroka’s passion is helping sales and marketing professionals realize the full sales potential of customer references. Entrepreneurial and fervently customer-focused by nature, his goal is to nurture a company that his employees feel proud to be part of and deliver a valuable service, which makes his customers “stars” in their own organizations.
Insiders Take on the Current Trend in the CRM Industry
CRM is finally beginning to reach its potential as the hub of the Martech stack. Rather than siloes functions, savvy companies are now recognizing the interconnectivity of a client’s NPS score, service tickets, campaign responses and how these indicate potential reference-ability. AI will play a much more significant role in predicting some of the most critical aspects of the customer lifecycle. The key here will be in using this information intelligently and improving all vital interactions within their organizations and with customers.
Mission for the Future
Point of Reference’s on-going mission is to help their clients close opportunities faster by streamlining the entire customer reference management function. By consolidating and automating every aspect of a customer reference program, they enable companies to inject authentic and credible customer insights throughout the buyer’s journey. At the end of the day, Sroka measures his company’s success by its customers’ success; time saved and more deals closed faster.
Source :- The 10 Best Enterprise CRM Solution Providers 2018