Having attended the Customer Reference Forum last week and spent a little over two days discussing the management of reference programs, what are my key takeaways?

I shouldn't say this but... well... reference programs aren't rocket science. Sure, there is an awful lot of stuff to get right and execute well. Good ways to engage the field; good ways to win customer participation; shortcuts to be gained by adopting proven processes and best practices; tools that can automate and measure programs. All these aspects have got to work well (and the forum is a brilliant place to hear and learn about them) but fundamentally everyone present in Berkeley was smart enough to fix the details required for successful execution of a reference program.

So if these small roadblocks are navigable, what are the big roadblocks?

Upon reflection it seemed to me that the biggest problem still seems to be negotiating the hurdles put in the way by your own organization. Either directly or indirectly, these problems were often voiced at the forum:

• Reconciling the demands (confusion) caused by operating in matrix organizations, often without a definitive mandate
• Building reference-ability goals into the personal objectives (and remuneration) of sales
• Creating a 360 degree view of the customer, and the people and budgets that touch customer
• Connecting the dots across the organization between sales, marketing, product support (even product development too, for Early Adopter Programs)
• Getting an incremental multi-year investment commitment
• Linking to core IT systems for reconciling customer data, reference activity and revenue values

All these problems seem to point back to a lack of a deep organizational commitment to the role of references in the sales cycle. Effectively manifesting itself through avoidance of these tough decisions. Some of these problems are self perpetuating: without the right revenue data you'll never prove the value being added, but to get the links to revenue data you need to prove the value...

Which is why, aside from helping clients work on fixing the nuts & bolts of their programs, we are also working with them to get the organizational cut through necessary to raise their programs to the next level. One aspect of this is around our work in systems, metrics and performance data, the other is around articulating the value effectively to senior stakeholders. One of our trump cards is Coleen Kaiser, until recently responsible for running SAP's global customer reference program but now at Metia. Coleen is now helping some of our clients to escalate the awareness of their programs internally, demonstrate value, gain senior executive buy-in and force the issue around these tough decisions that are too easily avoided.

I have no doubt that the nitty gritty detail problems of running and improving reference programs will stay with us (and we'll be back at the forum to share more ideas next year) but the challenge that we need to take up on behalf of our own customers, is to see whether we can resolve these tough decisions and build customer advocacy into the DNA of an organization.