The Customer Powered Enterprise Playbook

The Customer-Powered Enterprise Playbook 1
Presented by Influitive, Gainsight & Pendo

Presented by Influitive, with thanks to contributors Gainsight and Pendo
Table of Contents
Foreword: A Broader View of Customer Advocacy............................................ 3
Part 1: Introducing the Customer-Powered Enterprise....................................4
Introduction...............................................................................................................5
Why Advocates Are Essential in Today’s Customer Journey............................ 11
The Hyperfunnel: Creating the Ideal Buyer Experience..................................15
Organizing Your Hyperfunnel with a Community That Converts.................18
Part 2: How to Create a Customer-Powered Enterprise................................. 21
Customer-Powered Marketing..............................................................................23
Customer-Powered Customer Success............................................................... 26
Customer-Powered Sales....................................................................................... 31
Customer-Powered Product Development.........................................................35
Expanding the Definition of a “Customer”........................................................ 39
Customer-Powered Developer Relations...........................................................40
Customer-Powered Employee Engagement...................................................... 43
Customer-Powered Partner Management.........................................................46
Part 3: Technology to Enable Your Customer-Powered Enterprise...............49
The Customer Powered Enterprise Playbook

Foreword: A Broader View of Customer Advocacy
It’s been five years since Influitive published the Advocate Marketing Playbook with
our friends at TOPO. Since then, it’s been downloaded over 5,700 times by ambitious
advocacy leaders. Hundreds of companies have followed those proven plays to achieve
success in developing powerful advocate programs that helped to drive key
business objectives.
We’ve also witnessed amazing creativity and being customer-powered is the most transformative
innovation as individuals at these companies have idea in business today. If you not only build your
taken the principles of advocate marketing and business around your customers, but also provide
applied them across other teams in the organization the environment for them to fuel every aspect of
to unlock greater value from their customers, your business, you will have the opportunity to lead
developers, partners, and employees. your industry.
They have moved beyond the scope of strictly MVP This new playbook is full of examples of companies
advocate programs towards driving engagement that have successfully used these tactics. We are
throughout the customer lifecycle. It’s time for a confident that it will help you follow in their footsteps,
new playbook. and we wish you the best of luck on your journey.
This Customer-Powered Enterprise Playbook, co-

Mark Organ
produced with our partners Gainsight and Pendo,
Founder and CEO of Influitive
lays out the challenges and opportunities of building
a customer-powered organization, and provides
a prescriptive approach to success. I believe that

PA R T 1
Introducing the
Customer-Powered
Enterprise
Introduction
It’s the third quarter, and the executive team for to sales, customer success and product innovation.
a well-known B2B technology organization are Your customers—everyone who exchanges value
bracing themselves for a year of disappointing with you and your company—want to see you
company performance. After several years of healthy succeed, and are ready to help. You just need to
growth, sales are down. The pipeline is stuffed create the right environment for them.
with dead ends. Customers are defecting. Product
innovation has stalled, and the earnings outlook As the leadership team sought to find answers, they
is dismal. uncovered some surprising insights. When customers
provided referrals and references, sales opportunities
The team is frustrated and defeated. To prepare closed twice as fast. Product reviews written by
for what was supposed to be another banner year, customers not only generated more quality leads,
they asked for a massive content budget increase, but also gave their product team a peek into the
tried account-based marketing (ABM), added new features that were most valuable to users. And after
headcount to sales and marketing, participated in recruiting customers to participate in their online
more conferences, ran several high-profile advertising support community, customer satisfaction began to
campaigns, and sent customer surveys out on a climb. That is when executives began to realize the
regular basis to gather product feedback. But it potential of customer involvement to impact areas of
wasn’t enough. the business in ways they never thought possible.
This scenario has played out for years in B2B

Customer Centricity, Customer Obsession,
companies across every industry. You might even be
Customer Empathy
experiencing some of these same issues. No matter
how many internal resources you dedicate, customer Management theorists from Peter Drucker to
acquisition costs remain too high; the lifetime value Tom Peters have urged businesses to become
of your customers is too low. And regardless of the more “customer-centric.” Today, Jeff Bezos, CEO
size of investment in your product and customer of Amazon, challenges us to do even more—to
service, it is not paying off as much as it should. If become “customer-obsessed.” Since Amazon has
this sounds familiar, it’s time to rethink the way you consistently dominated new markets over the past
approach the customer journey. decade, it is important to pay close attention to what
Bezos has to say:
Rather than looking to your employees to drive
growth, imagine if you could extend those resources In his 2016 letter to Amazon shareholders, Bezos
in a much more sustainable way. Imagine if you writes about the benefits of being a customer-
could inspire a group of extraordinarily talented obsessed company—what he considers one of
and motivated people who are willing to help you Amazon’s most important values.
in every aspect of your business, from marketing

“There are many advantages to a customer- What is the best way to develop empathy? To put
centric approach, but here’s the big one: aside your viewpoint, validate your customer’s
customers are always beautifully, wonderfully perspective, and really listen. We believe you must
dissatisfied, even when they report being happy work directly with your customers. Make them feel like
and business is great. Even when they don’t yet part of the team. Invite them into your community to
know it, customers want something better, and participate. Be more than centred around customers
your desire to delight customers will drive you to or even obsessed with them: let your business be
invent on their behalf.” 1 powered by customers.
Introducing the Customer-Powered

But what does being customer-obsessed really
mean? How do you create this cultural value in your
Enterprise (CPE)
organization? Look closely at the excerpt above. You The true leaders in today’s crowded marketplace are
can only invent on someone’s behalf if you immerse those who harness the power of their customers not
yourself in that person’s experience. Doing so will just to inform their businesses, but to actually fuel their
help you to truly understand their journey, what businesses. What does this mean? Customers should
motivates them, what scares them and what excites not only be at the centre of your business strategy, but
them. This is the power of customer empathy. they should also be the ones helping you to execute.
You need them in the boat paddling with you.
The boat where customers are paddling next to employees wins the race.
1
Jeff Bezos, 2016 Letter to Amazon Shareholders.

A Customer-Powered Enterprise (CPE)
is an organization that leverages its
customers not only to inform all aspects
of its business strategy, but also to fuel its
sales, marketing, CS, and product efforts.
When executed right, these efforts will
significantly accelerate sales and increase
customer lifetime value.
“Many companies are going further because their customers are in the boat paddling with
them,” says Mark Organ, founder and CEO of Influitive. “Customers are experts in their own
needs. And although they’re not necessarily software, sales, or marketing experts, they can
provide a higher quality and quantity of work to help your business go further, faster.”

Incorporate Your Customers into Every Stage of the Value Chain
You can break down a value chain into two parts:

“Competitive advantage is, at best, a
Value Chain = Supply Chain + Demand Chain
fleeting commodity that must be won
again and again. No matter what business
The supply chain is made up of all the elements that
or industry one looks at...ongoing value- keep your company operating and producing the
chain assessment and design at the products and services your customers need. This
corporate level have become a necessity.” half of the equation is where customer feedback
can improve your offerings and delivery, as well as
CHARLES H. FINE, inform future developments.
Researcher at the
MIT Sloan School of
The demand chain includes everything needed to
Management
get those products and services into the hands of
your customers, to make them successful, and keep
them coming back. This half is where customers can
increase the efficiency of your sales, marketing, and
To understand the full potential of building a customer support, which includes the development
Customer-Powered Enterprise (CPE), you need to and distribution of user-generated content.
examine each aspect of your company’s value chain.
A value chain is simply “the process or activities by “Customers are often the solution to many
which a company adds value to an article, including departmental business objectives. Engineering
production, marketing, and the provision of after-
depends on customers for new version user
sales service.
acceptance testing and product advisory
boards. Product management engages
In traditional value chains, employees convert one
form of value, like raw materials, into a higher form—
customers for visionary executive councils.”
the finished product—at a profit.
CARLOS GONZALEZ
What’s different about the CPE value chain is that former VP of Customer
Success Operations,
customer involvement is a key input at every Ceridian
stage of the value-addition process. The more
diverse and embedded your customers are across
the business, the higher the return on investment for
both the company and the customer.
1 Charles H. Fine, “Rapid Response Capability in Value Chain Design,” MIT Sloan Management Review, January 15, 2002.

“When advocates share our content with How Pendo Injects
their social circles, they help us raise Customer Power to
awareness, extend our reach, and generate
Product Development
leads. In the past year, 6,500+ social
media shares resulted in 52,000+ clicks to Pendo’s mission is to help companies better
Learning@Cisco content.” understand how customers are using their
products so they can improve their product
experience and increase satisfaction.
SONIA CHAVEZ
Advocate Marketing Manager,
Cisco “Digital products and their associated
experience are an increasingly critical part
of the overall customer experience,” says
Todd Olson, co-founder and CEO of Pendo.
“That’s why product teams need a better
Opening the dialogue between customers and way to understand and optimize the digital
employees helps deliver more value to customers. It product experience.”
leads to more meaningful conversations that can fuel
innovation, create better customer experiences, and Asking for product requirements or
provide your company with an unthinkable level of feedback on prototypes is a start. But to
insight on your product or service. truly feel the frustration or satisfaction
of your users, you need deep insights
The key is to ask yourself, for each function of that come from seeing exactly how your
your business or element of the value chain: “How customers navigate your solution, and
can our customers help us do this better, faster, or where they get stuck.
cheaper?”
“The way that Pendo thinks about our role
The table on the following page highlights some in that problem, is we help product leaders
general ideas, but most organizations will uncover and product users to better understand
more specific opportunities to make an impact on each other,” says Jake Sorofman, CMO of
their business. Pendo. “The net result of that are products
that users not only love but feel like they
can’t live without because the products
really do anticipate and fulfill needs.”
There is no hiding behind a false brand

promise. Product experiences that do
not deliver are quickly sniffed out. So, it
is essential for businesses to inject their
supply chain with customer feedback.

How Customers Fuel Every Function
Function How Customers Can Help
Marketing: Spreading • Ask customers to produce content, write reviews, provide social shares,
the word and creating validate use cases, and promote your brand through word-of-mouth.
interest • Customer stories provide validation and social proof for prospects.
Sales: Converting your • Sign up customers to act as references, participate in sales calls, present
prospects and providing during webinars and conferences.
proof • Use trusted connections to help you close more deals.
• Craft the right journey to build stronger relationships at scale with the
help of customer input. By listening, learning and rewarding customers
for their contributions, you can continuously demonstrate value—from
Customer Success: onboarding to advocacy.
Retaining customers
and growing your • Use customer experts as mentors to reduce support costs and train new
business users.
• Build learning flows by partnering with customers to enable all users of

your products and make them successful.
Product/Engineering/ • Collect customer feedback, ideas, and pain points to inform your product
Design: Designing and roadmap. incorporate new features, and address unexpected use cases.
delivering valuable • Ask customers to participate in product betas or penetration testing to
products and services protect your business against cybersecurity threats.
• Motivate your employees to proactively share relevant content with their

online professional networks.
Operations/HR/
• Rely on customers and employees to grow your team, with recruiting
Finance/IT: Efficiently
referrals.
supporting the business
• Enlist customers to provide input and validate technology purchases so
you can be sure those solutions meet your needs.
Wondering where to start? Before we dive deeper into all the different ways customers can power each
function of your business (Part 2 of this eBook), it’s important to take a closer look at today’s customer
journey and the role that advocates play.

Why Advocates Are Essential in Today’s Customer Journey
A simplified customer journey consists of these four

stages:
Every business seeks to convert prospective buyers into new customers, new customers
into successful customers, and so on. These conversions determine the ultimate success of
the business. Advocates can accelerate and increase the probability of each successive
conversion throughout the entire customer journey.
With advocates showing the way, more conversions happen at each stage, and the end-to-
end process happens in less time.

Before the digital age, converting new customers
was fairly straightforward. Since buyers had access
to limited sources of information, sellers controlled
the entire process. Consider these stats:
84%
Fast forward to today’s buyer experience, and you
get a very different picture. Buyers are now at the
helm of their own journeys, and they’re using your
current customers’ testimonials to steer them. of B2B buyers start the purchase
process with a referral.2
When prospects conduct online research to find the
right product or service, they are met with a complex
and tangled web of content on the internet, some of
which belongs to you, some of which that belongs
to your competitors, and some that is completely
38%
of B2B buyers sought input from
unrelated. And even though customers are steering peers or existing users in the
their journey, they don’t always know which direction community in the first three months
to go to find the information they need. They’re of the buying journey.3
looking at:
•
•
•
Social media
Online product reviews
Third-party blogs
65%
of B2B buyers say they rely more on
• Product websites
peer recommendations and review
• Data sheets
sites when evaluating a purchase.4
• Case studies
• Company blogs
2
“What you should know about B2B referrals,” Heinz Marketing & Influitive, 2015.
3
2nd and 3rd stats come from Klaudia Tirico, “2018 B2B Buyers Survey,” Demandbase, June 2018.
4
2nd and 3rd stats come from Klaudia Tirico, “2018 B2B Buyers Survey,” Demandbase, June 2018.

Consider this confusing path to purchase from a customer’s perspective.
Veronica is the marketing

She reads some product
manager for a tech company.
sheets and customer
She’s been asked to source a
success stories, and
new video conferencing solution
decides to reach out to
for her growing team.
the vendors.
She visits a few product

websites, but it’s hard to get a
clear picture of pricing and
product features.
One requires her to use a

poorly written chatbot flow
She posts a quick to arrange a meeting.
question asking for help
comparing the products.
The other recommends a free

trial with limited functionality.
After poking around for a while, she

stumbles on a user community.
Almost immediately multiple people respond, some

with technical recommendations, others with
paragraph long comparisons listing features and
flaws she hadn’t even considered. One of the
members even offers to provide a quick demo.
After engaging with the online user

community, Veronica now has confidence in
her choice and solid data to bring back to her
boss, making the path to purchase clear.
You can see that the path is anything but linear.
Twists and turns are everywhere, making it hard
to predict what buyers will do next. But there’s a
key opportunity that many of Veronica’s potential
vendors missed—getting their happiest customers to
connect with Veronica and share their experiences.
Even though they failed to promote it to prospective

buyers, the vendor that had an open, accessible,
and active customer community ultimately won
Veronica’s account. Once Veronica connected with
the customer advocates in this peer group, her path
to purchase was straightened out and accelerated
as she gained the understanding she needed from
trusted sources.
Enterprises that are customer-powered encourage

advocates within their community to share their
experience and insights with prospects, and other
customers. This access to customer-generated
content helps to simplify the buyer experience
through unbiased peer reviews, feedback, and
recommendations.

The Hyperfunnel: Creating the Ideal Buyer Experience
Today’s buyer journey is complex and non-linear, but you can systematically influence
it if you understand your buyers’ objectives. By enlisting your customer advocates at
every stage of the demand chain, you will accelerate demand-chain conversions at an
unprecedented rate. The result? Your traditional sales and marketing funnel transforms
into what we call a “hyperfunnel.”
The hyperfunnel has wider reach & fewer yet more effective touchpoints.
A hyperfunnel differs from a typical funnel for two Customer-powered enterprises deliver the
primary reasons: hyperfunnel for buyers, helping them understand
how great their experience as a customer would be.
1. It is expanded because customer advocates This authentic buying experience is far superior to
extend your reach to their professional networks. the status quo.
2. It moves faster because customer advocates Buyers like Veronica are looking for trust and
add trust, which straightens and accelerates the validation from successful customers just like
buyer’s journey. them. Making these trust-building touchpoints
easily accessible to your customers reduces time,

confusion, and frustration that are too often a core • Product reviews from customers that are
aspect of technology purchase experiences today. detailed and unbiased.
• Reference calls with successful customers.
• Social media posts from successful customers.
“Our advocacy program plays a key role in • Blog posts written by or featuring customers.
helping to accelerate movement through • Case studies with customer quotes.

our sales funnel. Using our advocacy • Conversations with customers at live events,
like user groups and conferences.
hub, we launched a reference program —
• Webinars hosted by customers.
one that was much more strategic and
• Community forum discussions led by customers
focused than anything we’ve done in the and prospects.
past. We were able to identify advocates
who were not only willing to write letters
According to the great software marketing theorist
of reference, but to deploy them at scale Geoffrey Moore, author of Crossing the Chasm and
on our behalf. Because of our advocate Zone to Win, “enlistment” of customers is one of the
community and because of these reference four critical gears required to power a business to an
letters, we closed a quarter of a million industry-leading position. Moore’s other three gears
dollars in business during the pilot phase are Acquisition, Engagement, and Monetization—all
of the program.” of which are important for driving mindshare, market
share and revenue.
NICOLE DINGLEY, According to Moore:

Director of Customer Success,
Wiley “[Enlistment] may not be as obvious a success
factor as the other three, so let me say a few
more words about it. Enlistment is the ability
to get participants in your ecosystem to
voluntarily and at their own expense recruit new
From an outsider’s perspective, the buyer’s journey
members. Typically these are consumers whose
appears as a series of hyperlinks teleporting the
engagement experience has been so delightful,
buyer all over the social Web — as they move
they simply want to spread the joy. Importantly,
through a typical buying sequence of awareness,
they are not motivated by monetization and
interest, consideration, intent, evaluation, and
attempts to monetize their activity are often
purchase. But from the buyer’s perspective, it is an
counter-productive.”
efficient, straightforward, and enjoyable journey,
infused with trust and transparency. A journey that
This methodology is very similar to the Discover,
makes it more likely for the buyer to become an
Nurture, Mobilize (DNM) process created by Influitive
advocate him or herself.
to help businesses identify, enlist, and engage
advocates in their community (which you can read
Touchpoints involving the real testimonials of your
more about on page 19).
successful customers build trust. Some of the best
touchpoints to include customers in include:

What happens to a company that is unable to enlist Eventually, the company’s more capable competitors
its advocates for its growth efforts? It loses potential will overtake it due to their greater efficiency,
profit as its cost of sales and service is significantly allowing them to out-hire and out-invest in an even
higher than it should be. better customer experience—which in turn drives the
Helix model.
Its products, pricing, and packaging do not hit the
mark, and both user and customer churn increase.
The Recurring Revenue

Helix Model
Did you know that your customers can help you
multiply your revenue growth exponentially? Our
partners at Gainsight have developed a model
called the Helix that explains how businesses can
increase profits through their existing customers.
Gainsight’s Helix Model
Here’s how it works. In a company with recurring
revenue, a buyer goes from lead to opportunity to Customers who are successful can help to acquire
customer. Once that cycle is complete, that person and train new customers—driving successful
then becomes a lead again for renewal, as well as customers to grow in number and proficiency. When
for upsell and cross-sell opportunities. In addition, done right, this process adds massive value for both
they have the potential to refer one or more new the customer and the company. When advocates
leads back to your company. are properly nurtured and rewarded, they’ll enjoy
the experience without burning out. This is key to
This means that each happy customer can making sure the growth is sustainable.
generate at least three new opportunities: a
renewal, an upsell/cross-sell, and a new customer. The secret to gaining and sustaining exponential
That new customer now has the potential to growth is to have a product and customer
generate at least three more opportunities in the experience that inspires advocates and makes them
same way, and so on. This leads to exponential want to share their love.
revenue growth. (Learn more about how to use
your current customers to get new leads in Part 2 of
this eBook.)

Organizing Your Hyperfunnel with a Community That Converts
How are you going to get your customers You can think of “mentor customers” or advocates
organized and supporting the different as catalysts. Just as catalysts help convert one form
of matter into another with less energy, relevant
elements of your business? At the heart
advocates leverage their trusted status to better
of any Customer-Powered Enterprise
convert prospects into customers, customers into
(CPE), and behind every hyperfunnel, is an successful and loyal customers, and successful
engaged community with advocates. customers into advocates just like themselves. The
ideal outcome is a community that converts.
Think of this as the new central place for persuasive Since customers now rely on each other to inform
interactions with every customer type—your paying their purchases, you should aim for the following
customers, prospects, partners, platform developers, customer-powered outcomes:
and even employees. For CPEs, the community
plays a role similar to website and marketing 1. Your customers are so successful with your
automation tools—driving engagement, education product that they become advocates.
and persuasion.
2. Your advocates are excited to share their
The most powerful communities allow customers at experiences with others.
all stages of their lifecycle to mingle with each other.
3. Your advocates are accessible to the people
The goal is to leverage your more mature customers
that want to hear from them.
to help less mature customers advance. These
“mentor customers” (and the content they create) Many companies are afraid to give their prospects
should be relevant to less mature customers or direct access to their customers because they fear
prospects in order to be persuasive and effective — that they will reveal their flaws.
ideally having a similar use case, title, and situation.
David Skok, a former entrepreneur and General Partner at Matrix Partners, highlights
the power of enabling customer-prospect conversations in his blog post, The One Day
Sales Cycle. David explains how his company identified the many needs of their buyers
throughout a long nine-month sales cycle, including sharing customer examples and
references. By bringing all of these elements together during a fun and engaging live event
that seated customers and prospects side-by-side, the company found themselves unexpectedly taking more
than a year’s worth of orders from brand new prospects at the end of a single day.
Fun fact: “The One Day Sales Cycle” is a key part of Influitive’s origin story, as it inspired Mark Organ when
he first learned about it from David in 2005!

If your product and customer experience is truly
Discover, Nurture
high quality, then your advocates will help highlight and Mobilize Your
the positive aspects of your product. They may give
prospects inventive workarounds, or help them see
Advocates
how to overcome product limitations. They may
To build effective relationships with your
also explain why your product is still the best on the
advocates, so that you can expand your
market and worth it despite its flaws.
community and progressively ask for more
valuable contributions, we recommend
Some of the best live events Influitive has ever
using a Discover, Nurture, Mobilize (DNM)
hosted have been those where we get both
approach to drive the best results. This
customers and prospects in the same room, and just
methodology is fully explained in our Guide
let them share their experiences.
To Customer Engagement, Retention &
Advocacy, and ensures that you have:
Connect your community to
1. An ongoing process for identifying new
every touchpoint advocates as they interact with your
Unlike the virtual support-focused communities that product, your community, and your
are familiar to most of our readers, a community front-line teams in Customer Success
with advocates as used by CPEs is connected and Sales.
to everything. Every touchpoint that your buyers
2. A focus on deepening relationships at
have with your company is an opportunity to drive
each stage of the customer lifecycle.
interaction with your advocates and their content.
3. A proactive approach to inspire your
External de facto communities. Like it or not, your advocates to act on the goodwill they
buyers are spending time in de facto communities feel toward your company through
on the Web and in real life discussing and learning various forms of advocacy.
about your company. Third-party review sites, blog
comments, social media sites, private messaging The result will be a thriving, engaged
boards, conferences, and meet-ups are all community that can support a Customer-
components of these external communities that Powered Enterprise.
buyers use to make better decisions.
In the past, community managers have worked to

have the most important interactions occur inside NU
ER
V
RT
their proprietary “walled garden” community.

D I SCO
URE
The best approach is to do the opposite—direct

community members to external communities where
they can be more persuasive and accrue more
social capital. The result is a more vibrant and useful MO E
BILIZ
community that converts and drives revenue.

Product interfaces. Web and mobile interfaces are Whether its marketers using the community for
playing more of a central role for most companies better market research, customer success managers
today. Every interaction that your customers and connecting new customers with experienced
prospects have inside your product interface is an customer mentors, sales reps leveraging a tailored
opportunity to engage with them, fostering learning reference to close a deal faster, or a product
and advocacy. manager gaining rapid feedback for a product
feature idea, your advocate community is their
Also, the community can be used to incentivize your central resource to drive results.
customers to use your more complex but valuable
features—helping to ensure their retention and drive Part 2 of this eBook examines how several B2B
upsell potential. It’s essential to segment your user technology organizations are achieving success by
base and provide the right experience for everyone. leveraging these ideas, with specific methodologies
Thanks to modern product interaction tools, this and quantitative results. Different departments from
level of sophistication is now economically available. Marketing to Sales, Customer Success, and Product
are profiled as they help their companies become
Employees in Customer Success, Sales, Marketing customer-powered.
and Product. One way to think of your community
is as an extension of your employee base. Many
functions that your employees do today can be
augmented or entirely replaced by your advocates.
By creating standard processes that make it easy
for employees to leverage advocates, with a deeper
knowledge of their own situation and an elevated
ability to persuade prospects, more quality work can
get done in less time for less money.
Understanding time and reputation that they lend to a company they

care about. At Influitive, we have a model derived
Advocate Motivation from years of research into advocate motivation,
which shows that advocates need:
Any thriving community, physical or online, 1. To feel like members of an exclusive tribe.
should be focused on the needs of its
2. To understand that their actions are having a
members. An advocate community focuses on
measurable impact.
the needs of customer advocates, which can
be different from their needs as customers. 3. To build more social capital among
While customers care about having a product their peers.
that works and access to good service when This model is fully detailed in Mark Organ and Deena
they need it; advocates seek a return on their Zenyk’s book, The Messenger is the Message.

PA R T 2
How to Create a
Customer-Powered
Enterprise
How to Transform Your Business into a Customer-Powered Enterprise
Now that you understand the value of building a Customer-Powered Enterprise, it is time
to put these ideas into practice and apply them to your own organization.
“Reimagining your different departments to incorporate customers in as many areas as

possible is at the heart of becoming a customer-powered enterprise,” says Mark Organ.
In the following sections, we’ll break down how each department can leverage the power
of customers to boost ROI, while improving customer experiences.
SS
U
C
MA ST CE
RK ETIN G OME
R SUC
T
PR
EN
DU
PM
O
CT
SALES D E V E LO

Customer-Powered Marketing
Since B2B buyers seek proof from their the-scenes (e.g. contributing ideas for a blog.) Both
peers when making buying decisions, options are beneficial to you and your customers.
it’s important to mobilize your customer
Customer advocates can also provide quotes
advocates to spread their love of your
for press releases, as well as create and deliver
products on review websites, marketing webinars and conference presentations. Whether
content, and social media. at your company’s own conference, or at an event
you’ll be sponsoring, advocates can help bring
You can influence what’s being said about your conversations about your niche to the fore.
company on these channels by incentivizing happy
customers to share their positive experiences
publicly. Encouraging customers to increase
sharing online and in person
Customer advocates can also provide feedback One of the best ways to influence prospects is to
on your messaging and content before it goes live increase positive, organic word-of-mouth about your
to market. Think of them as your on-demand focus company in the channels that buyers are using for
group to vet new ideas before rolling them out. research. Mobilize your advocates to talk about your
solutions on social networks, third-party websites
Using advocates to create customer and channels, as well as at live events.
stories faster
You can amplify your reach on social media by
Advocates can help you develop content faster inspiring advocates to share your latest content
than relying on your marketing team alone. Many across their profiles. Another common way to get
advocates love the chance to be in the spotlight, advocates in front of buyers is to ask them to write
and will happily give you testimonials, or appear in an online review. Many of your satisfied customers
case studies, blog posts, videos, and eBooks. may not go out of their way to write a review, but
would often be happy to oblige if you encourage
After they’ve been sufficiently nurtured, offer them and incentivize them.
opportunities to share their thought leadership with
your community. Make sure to offer a variety of You can also encourage advocates to defend
opportunities, so customers can select which ones your brand on blogs or other online communities,
appeal to them most. especially where it isn’t appropriate for your
company to do so directly. While you never want to
Some of your advocates may love to be in the put words in advocates’ mouths, simply asking them
spotlight (e.g. having their name and face featured in to join the conversation usually means they’ll jump to
a case study), and others will prefer a more behind- your brand’s defense.

Building an engaged community with the messaging development process by asking them
advocates to share their pains with you and weigh in on which
benefits resonate most with them.
Creating an engaged community through the
DNM model pays dividends. It provides a richer
Ask for input on how to best communicate your
overall experience to customers, and marketers
value proposition, position your products, or even
simultaneously open up an invaluable direct
name product features. Then you can fine-tune
communication channel with these customers.
based on advocate feedback, so you can be sure
You can call on your community to give feedback on
your messaging hits the mark, every time.
your marketing, and involve your advocates early in
Success Story
How Hero K12 Accelerated Content Creation &
Extended Their Online Brand Presence
The customer marketing team at Hero K12 Not only did they create an army of customers
was looking for a scalable way to connect with willing to contribute to testimonials, referrals,
users of their student behavior management references, and online reviews, but they also
software. They wanted to provide customers helped customers meet their own goals and
with educational resources to help them use the develop their professional networks. By acting
product successfully, gather feedback to shape on customer feedback and nurturing their
the future of their product, and drive results for advocates, they generated the following results:
their business. • 173 online reviews, representing a 69%
growth year-over-year
With the help of their customer engagement
• 141 customers in reference pool,
platform, they were able to do all of that and representing a 271% growth year-over-year
more. Together with advocate marketing best • $143,018 in referral revenue
practices, Hero K12 used the platform to build
• 465 testimonials
strong customer relationships by posing asks
• 31 customer stories published
and challenges to customers, rewarding them for
• 2,204 advocate shares of social media
participation, and educating them on ways to best
content
use their product.
“By harnessing the power of the customer, you

can not only get feedback and build empathy, JESSICA MITCHELL,
but also educate them on your product, and get Customer Marketing
Manager, Hero K12
tangible results for your business.”

Worksheet
Build Your Own Customer-Powered Marketing

How can you inject your marketing with customer power? Start by answering the following questions.
Which marketing objectives will customer-power be tied to? E.g. lead generation, content
marketing, website optimization, etc.
How can each function in the marketing team benefit from customer power?
Which programs and campaigns could most benefit from embedded advocates?
What results would you like to see from injecting customer power?

Customer-Powered Customer Success
The post-sale experience is a critical part “In other words, you are not the protagonist of your
of the customer journey. Providing a customer’s journey. It’s a natural tendency to think
of ourselves as the hero, but in Customer Success,
flawless experience leads to high customer
we’re an advisor, a guide, and (maybe) a friend.
loyalty and growth. Also, strategically
They’re Harry Potter, we’re Professor Dumbledore.”
placed moments of surprise and delight
can create powerful new advocates. Tools like Gainsight help orchestrate that customer
journey across complex organizations with multiple
Modern B2B organizations should not rely on their teams and multiple touchpoints to make sure the
technology alone to create a positive customer customer achieves their desired outcomes and has
experience. They must also take ownership of the great experiences with every interaction. Healthy
outcomes generated by their customers with their customer-sustained communities are almost always
Customer Success function. This function is people- linchpins of those successful outcomes and great
intensive and responsible for generating renewals, experiences. CSMs and the community can also be
and often account growth through cross-selling complementary, working together to drive value and
and upselling. Some are responsible for generating experience for customers.
customer advocacy as well.
The challenge for CS organizations is the level Improve user adoption and retention
of labor-intensity which makes it difficult to scale. Creating successful customers starts with education.
Whether the task is onboarding new customers, A customer community is a perfect place to
saving accounts forecasted to churn, or discerning share resources that will set new customers up
which accounts to target for an upsell campaign, for success. You can make this process more
a Customer Success Manager (CSM) is usually engaging and interactive by creating timely, gamified
involved and is the limiting resource. community campaigns. This way, sharing best
practices, news, and product education feels like
Nick Mehta, CEO of Gainsight, says, “instead of only less of a chore to customers, and more like fun.
focusing on internal metrics (e.g., churn, retention,
and NPS), the most sophisticated companies A little bit of creativity and competition can entice
are looking from the outside in, starting with the users to master new features or learn about other
customer’s experience and desired outcomes and customer success initiatives, and be automatically
working backward.” rewarded for their participation. This improved
customer experience drives faster time to value and
increases customer retention over time.

A community also helps adoption and retention Often customer mentors work hand in hand with
since customers can help each other resolve CSMs to get new customers launched successfully.
problems quickly, and inspire one another to do Once successfully launched, the new customer
more with your product. Take for example: the code is much more likely to serve as a mentor in the
red process. When customers are not generating future, creating exponential value for the customer
value required to renew, their CSM will often community. This is the culture of customer advocacy
scramble to get the customer back on track. Tools that can lead to industry dominance.
like Gainsight can be used to identify churn risks
early, and then run “plays” from a playbook to help By providing your customers with a central place to
the CSM guide the customer towards success. connect with and learn from each other, you also
give them the support and motivation they need
However sometimes the customer just does not to be successful with your product and continue
want to speak with a CSM—they have had enough, advocating for your brand.
and do not intend to renew or spend any more time
on the solution. In this case, the customer may be
Uncover account growth opportunities
willing to connect with successful customer peer in
the community instead who is from their industry. Uncover your happiest users, and introduce them
This connection could be set up automatically to products or services they may not be aware of
through an algorithm or by a CSM. through educational campaigns, so that no potential
revenue goes undiscovered. This will help your CS
team take the guesswork out of which accounts are
Launch new customers effectively and ready for an upsell conversation. Plus, establishing
scalably meaningful relationships with your most successful
The best CS organizations are fastidious about advocates will make broaching the topic of account
launching new customers well. Generating expansion a more natural part of their journey.
measurable value early in the relationship has a
massively positive effect on retention, growth, and
advocacy. Tools like Gainsight are used to track
an individual customer’s progress through their
onboarding and training process. Ones that are
stalled can be prioritized for intervention by a CSM
or onboarding specialist.
The power of relevant advocates can be even more

transformative early on in the customer journey.
We have seen significant success with customer
mentorship programs, in which experienced
customers guide new customers on how to generate
the most value from the solution. The community is
used to set up these connections which offer value
to mentors and mentees.

Success Story
How Rosetta Stone Used Their Customers to
Boost Retention By 58%
Katie Raeburn, Customer Marketing Manager for “The Bridge” community as part of their
Rosetta Stone—a language-learning software customer advocacy program, they uncovered
provider—needed a scalable way to keep some impressive results:
customers from churning after their first year • 58% higher retention rates
of signing on. Since customers couldn’t easily • Almost 400 survey feedback responses
contact their support team or find the materials
• More than 470 discussion forum replies
they needed to successfully use the software,
• 179 advocate social shares
she found that renewal rates were declining.
In exchange for their contributions, Katie
Katie and her team believed that enlisting their
rewards advocates with points, which they can
customers to help with the onboarding process
use to redeem special perks—from Rosetta
might be the answer to keeping users longer,
Stone socks to recognition in their community.
so they developed a community of advocates
to share the load. Just 12 months after launching
“Our business—language learning—is about

connecting with people. The Bridge allows us KATIE RAEBURN,
to connect with more customers and help them Customer Marketing
Manager for Rosetta Stone
succeed.”

Success Story
How BombBomb Onboarded More than 400
Customers in Less than a Month
The customer success team at BombBomb—a onboarding process, allowing customers to

platform for creating and sending video emails— choose what they wanted to accomplish while
needed a scalable way to onboard users of their keeping it human with videos produced on their
newest product, while still keeping customers own platform. As a result, they onboarded more
happy. Originally designed as a “white glove” than 400 customers in less than a month and
30-minute onboarding phone call, product saved 322 hours in support time.
demand soon outpaced the team’s ability to
conduct one-on-one calls. Effectively onboarding customers so that they
can quickly succeed with your products is a
Responding to customer feedback, BombBomb prerequisite for building an engaged community.
created an in-app “Choose your own adventure”
“With in-app onboarding, customers could get

an easy, no-fuss breakdown of how to use our JEREMY KLEIER,
product while feeling as if we were walking them Customer Success
Engineer, BombBomb5
through it along the way.”
5
Beth Harvey, “Pendo Story: BombBomb,” Pendo, April 19, 2018.

Worksheet
Build Your Own Customer-Powered Customer Success

Where can you use customer-power to create a delighting and engaging customer journey?
• Are there points in the journey where customers seem to “stall”? Or adoption rate drops?
• How can customer-power help customer success teams reduce churn?
Ongoing Support &

Touchpoint Onboarding Training/Certification
Sharing Best Practices
• How can we set new • How can we provide better • How can we take our
customers up for success? training? program to the next level?
Issue/
Opportunity:
• E.g. Connect new customers • E.g. User-generated content • E.g. User success spotlights
with advocates (mentoring
program)
How Customer
Power Can
Help

Customer-Powered Sales
Your sales team plays an essential role in Increase access to customer references
connecting with prospects and building Stop burning out your small list of “go-to” customer
relationships that lead to revenue. references. An engaged community with advocates
However, it’s become increasingly difficult makes expanding your reference pool and
for sales reps to connect with potential connecting customers with prospects a faster, more
buyers through traditional channels, rewarding process. Uncover which customers in
your targeted industries are using which products
like email and phone. By leveraging
successfully. Then, send reference requests to the
your happiest customers’ stories and
right groups quickly and reward customers when
networks to reach prospects and build references are complete. Since this is all opt-in for
trust, sales can build a better pipeline, the advocate, they can participate when the timing is
close deals faster, and open doors to new good for them, and let others in the community pick
opportunities within an organization. up the slack at other times.
Generate more referrals Develop cross-sell opportunities

With the right community platform, targeting Advocates don’t just promote you publicly; they
advocates makes asking for referrals less awkward also serve as powerful ambassadors to other
and impersonal. Use educational challenges to stakeholders and groups across their organization.
teach advocates what your ideal customer looks By leveraging these relationships, sales team
like and why referrals matter to your business. members can uncover and win additional revenue
Target your referral requests at the right time, and to opportunities that might have never been
specific advocates who have indicated a willingness discovered without an advocacy program.
to refer. Additionally, referral tracking that integrates
with your CRM shows advocates the progress of Make internal referral requests of your advocates,
their referral and rewards them appropriately at each and create engaging digital experiences that they
stage of the process. can invite their entire organization into for increased
visibility of your solution.

Success Story
How PowerDMS Influenced $410,000 in Opportunities
with a Customer-Powered Reference Program
PowerDMS—a policy management software After customers were nurtured with fun and
provider—started their advocacy journey with educational activities, many were happy to step
an ad hoc program that was managed using up and raise their hands to act as references on
spreadsheets. However, once their executive calls with prospects. Ray has also encouraged
team saw how effective their early efforts were, customer advocates from the program to give
they were very eager to launch a full-fledged qualified referrals. In addition, PowerDMS
advocate community. Champions have volunteered to appear in case
studies and give product feedback.
Since launching the PowerDMS Champions
program in 2016, Ray Lau, Director of Customer Here are some of the results they’ve achieved:
Marketing, has been harnessing the power of • Influenced $410,000 in opportunities
customers to boost sales efforts. Ray has built • 91 referrals sourced through the program
genuine relationships with community members,
• 92 referenceable customers
and ensured an excellent advocate experience.
• 173 positive online reviews
“Our community has allowed us to quickly RAY LAU,

mobilize customers and improve every area Director of Customer
Marketing, PowerDMS
of our company.”

Success Story
How Yext Increased Referenceable
Customers by 1,000%
Yext is a digital knowledge management As a result, Yext increased referenceable

platform that helps businesses manage customers by 1,000% over six months, which
company information across digital channels. meant a 1,000% increase in sales references
They were looking for a way to scale growth, and new logo pipeline influenced by references
increase retention, and identify and mobilize compared to the year before.
their advocates to gain new business.
By evolving how Yext built and managed their
Using Gainsight, they were able to streamline customer journey, they were able to find hidden
onboarding and identify where customers were promoters and consistently engage them
getting stuck in the customer journey. Health to provide value to other departments. This
scores and dashboards helped identify matches alignment is how the ideal customer-powered
for sales references. enterprise works. While all departments can
benefit individually, but the best results come
To grow the voice of the customer, they from joint, tactical efforts with the customer
automated their Net Promoter Score (NPS) placed at the centre, and every party operating
surveys, which had a positive effect on sales, on the same page.
product, and customer success:
• Responses triggered a call from sales
• Product feedback informed the product
roadmap
• Every new promoter triggered a
notification to the customer marketing
team to research and identify a potential
advocate
“We now have a clear view into where a

customer is in their journey and how they’re
LAUREN CROCETTI
trending. And with very little effort, we’re VP Client Services, Yext6
identifying advocates that are excited to share
how we’ve added value for their business.”
6”
Driving Scalable Success for Customers, Yext Increases Customer Advocacy by 10X,” Gainsight, June 11, 2018

Worksheet
Build Your Own Customer-Powered Sales

Looking to create more referrals to fuel your sales efforts? Before you begin reaching out, it’s important to ask
yourself the following questions.
How does your company generate and manage referrals today?
What are your goals for referrals and how are you measuring up?
What is your referral strategy?
Who will own, manage, and measure it?
What tools and infrastructure do you have in place to manage referral execution and
success?

Customer-Powered Product Development
To gather customer insights, most Accelerate product iteration

companies rely on either time-consuming, Quickly get products and features to market that
1:1 outreach—which only lets them have already been validated by your customers.
connect with a handful of people—or Collect customer feedback so your product team
email surveys—which don’t often inspire can build the best products and get customers
customers to respond. The right customer excited to adopt new solutions before they’re
formally released. If your product team needs a
community solution gives companies an
ready-made group of beta testers, look no further
engaging system for continually collecting
than your super users.
meaningful feedback from a large group of
customers, which can be used to improve After all, they’re the ones who work with your
their product offerings and inspire product every day, they’re invested in your success,
customers to adopt new features faster. and they’re more likely to help out than your average
customer. Quickly source specific beta testers
(based on usage, industry, etc.), track their progress,
Continuously collect more customer
and quickly share real-time feedback internally so
insights
you can iterate on products with less effort.
Stop relying on the same small pool of customers to
influence your product direction. Leverage tools like
Strengthen product launches
Pendo to engage with a wider swath of customers
directly in your product interface. Quickly collect a Launch your products more effectively by tapping
variety of insights from a broad group of actively into the market insights provided by your customers.
engaged customers, and instantly recognize them For example, Influitive helps companies build
for sharing their opinions, so they’re motivated to do stronger relationships with strategic accounts (such
so again and again. as Customer Advisory Board or Product Advisory
Board members) by giving them exclusive sneak
Send timely, gamified polls, surveys or open-ended peeks of new products and greater influence on go-
requests for feedback to your entire community with to-market plans.
advocates, or target users of certain product lines or
industries to quickly get the best insights at multiple Use engaging campaigns to collect customer
points in the product development lifecycle. feedback on pricing, naming, packaging, and
messaging so they’re excited to adopt and promote
your newest products.

Success Story
How Carbon Black Collected Product
Feedback from 100+ Advocates
Kate Cohen, Senior Manager of Product Just one year after launching the Cb Defenders
Marketing at Carbon Black—an endpoint advocate community, Carbon Black recruited
security company—needed an easier, faster 100+ customer advocates to support their R&D
way to get product feedback to her R&D team, work, and 500+ to boost their marketing team
as well as to strengthen the company’s brand efforts. As a result, Carbon Black:
through online reviews and media.
• Ran six design studies over three months,
quickly integrating feedback into the
With an online community consisting of over product’s UI
15,000 members, she recruited the company’s
• Went from one week to two days to recruit
most active members to join an exclusive 25+ advocates for a product design study
community of hand-picked advocates to help • Generated 50 new reviews on Gartner
her on both fronts, while rewarding customers Peer Insights
for their participation. • Recruited an additional 40+ advocates to
participate in analyst and reference calls
“When you think about all the different teams

in the organization—from marketing to sales
to product management and beyond—they
all have something they can learn from our KATE COHEN
advocates that can help them achieve their Senior Manager of
Product Marketing at
goals. My biggest motivation is being able Carbon Black
to support our company mission with the
customer’s voice and to help cross-functional
teams and leaders make informed decisions.”

Success Story
How Cisco Cloudlock Drives Satisfaction
with In-Product Conversations
The product team at Cisco Cloudlock—a says Jennifer Sand, VP of Product Management,
pioneer in the cloud security space—turned the Cisco Cloudlock.
threat of a malware attack into an opportunity
to gather feedback and provide an outstanding Not only did the company receive immediate
experience to their customers. When customers feedback, but they increased their Net Promoter
reported being affected by the Google OAuth Score (NPS) by 20%.
attack, the security company decided to send
“With Pendo surveys we could have an in-
out in-product messages asking customers if
product conversation with our customers about
they wanted Cisco Cloudlock to implement an
the remediation process,” says Jennifer. “The
automated fix for them. By using Pendo Surveys
positive impression that this gives our customers
to make it easy for customers to provide
is really the most important thing here.”7
feedback, their response rate skyrocketed.
This positive customer experience is a
“The majority of our customers opted in to the
foundational element for building an engaged
automated fix. We saw a 68% response rate—
customer community.
nothing close to what we’d get through email,”
“We’ve found that our email contacts are not

necessarily the people using the product. So
JENNIFER SAND
really, in order to reach our customer base, VP of Product Marketing at
we needed to do in-product notifications. Cisco Cloudlock
Using Pendo for the notification provided us
with immediate customer feedback.”
7
Michael Peach, “Pendo Story: Cisco Cloudlock,” Pendo, May 22, 2017.

Worksheet
Build Your Own Customer-Powered Product Development

Answer the following questions to start bolstering your Product function with the power of your advocates.
What are some new products or features you’re releasing that could be beta tested by
advocates?
With easy, rapid access to customer feedback, what other aspects of your product cycle
would benefit from customer input?
What are the goals of having advocates test, and how will you measure your success?
BONUS: Top 7 Questions to Ask Customers for the Best Product Feedback
1. What tasks do you most often leverage our platform to perform?
2. What tasks is our platform currently not helping you with?
3. What would you like to see added or removed from our platform?
4. What design features do you currently enjoy?
5. Are you currently using any “workaround” tactics to complete a task on our platform?
6. Is support available to you when you need it?
7. Would you ever consider becoming a beta tester?

Expanding the Definition of a “Customer”
Up to this point, our discussion of customers has been limited to the traditional
definition. But taking a broader perspective of the different types of “customers” that
interact with your organization puts the Customer-Powered Enterprise model in a whole
new light.
In this broader view, a customer is anyone with whom you exchange value, whether or not money changes
hands. This includes:
• Developers who build on your platform.

• Partners who strengthen your ecosystem.
• Employees who deliver on your promises.
In the following sections, we’ll explore how each of these communities can power your enterprise as well.
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Customer-Powered Developer Relations
Outside developers are often essential to Increase product retention and usability:
the continued evolution and adoption Establishing a relationship with developers helps
of your product platform. To encourage ensure that they build with your customers in mind.
a healthy developer ecosystem, it’s This powerful technical crowd can improve usability
important to build a trusted bridge and retention by integrating your solution with
between your own product and other software solutions that are common in your
industry. By integrating with other solutions, your
engineering teams, and the developers
product becomes more deeply embedded in your
who build on top of your solution. By
customers’ core business processes, which usually
forming a relationship with developers extends the customer relationship by many years.
and inviting them into your community,
they’ll be able to improve usability and
Improve product experience for
increase product stickiness.
customers:
Developers are a great source of user-generated
Build a trusted developer community content, including training materials, snippets of
Engineers have a tendency to distrust people who code, and best practices. Providing a variety of
aren’t engineers, so a developer community needs integrations with other software solutions also
to be led by developers. Establishing a digital improves the user experience as customers no
community where you can invite developers to longer need to log in to multiple platforms to perform
collaborate and share their ideas will help create a task.
trust amongst this group. This opportunity will give
them a dedicated outlet to share valuable feedback
with your product team, helping to provide a better
experience for customers.

Success Story
How MongoDB Created a Community of
Contributing Developers
MongoDB, a leading database platform, developers to tell their stories, and by nurturing
wanted to create a developer community to them, created a crowd of advocates ready
better connect with their typically introverted and willing to provide content for their blogs
audience. What they discovered was a and online reviews. Here’s how advocates
tremendous opportunity to create user- responded:
generated content from their biggest fans.
• 24 blog posts contributed within three
weeks
The company knew that developers liked to be
• 220+ online reviews
part of a community that offered education and
networking opportunities, so they appealed to • 500 social shares per quarter
that motivation, offering rewards in exchange • 140,000 clicks on user-generated content
for participation. They reached out, asking
“These relationships keep me sharp, and when

you’re able to share mutually beneficial insights, DANIELE GRAZIANI
Software Architect and
you know you’re a part of a strong community— MongoDB advocate
one where you belong.”

Worksheet
Build Your Own Customer-Powered Developer Relations

Think about the team members who should be involved in the community and how they can contribute.
Who’s on your Developer Community team?
Team Member Name Objective in Community
Priyanka Ghopal Identify and recruit industry developers
Noah Levy Engage and manage relations
Casey Li Identify potential integrations

Customer-Powered Employee Engagement
A common mistake companies make is Reach a larger audience

thinking that paying customers matter When you provide your employees with the
more than their own employees. But the recognition, learning, inspiration, and the sense of
truth is that empowering and appreciating belonging they crave, they become enthusiastic
your employees is the first step towards promoters of your company—sharing stories with
delivering an unforgettable experience. their peers through blogs, social media, or other
word-of-mouth channels. This strategy can help you
That’s why employee engagement is an
attract some of the best talent, and future customers.
essential component of a Customer-
Powered Enterprise. They’re the ones who
drive the advocate culture throughout Improve employee retention
your company and provide experiences Having an online community makes it easy for
that keep customers coming back. customers to share their feedback and stories of
recognition. Highlighting moments where employees
went above and beyond, and sharing those stories
Empower employees to deliver a better across the company can boost your employees’
experience morale and inspire others to deliver exceptional
Providing your employees with thorough training customer experiences. Obtaining feedback and
will empower them to educate customers on how to stories directly from customers really drives home
best use your solution. This training can be delivered the impact employees are making and how their
via an online community, where employees can actions correlate to success.
complete it at their own pace. The community can
also be used to ensure all staff are aware of new
tools and resources to do their jobs more effectively,
and provide a better experience for customers.
Employees are then able to share the information,

tools, and best practices that they’ve learned with
customers. By passing on this knowledge, customers
are better equipped to fully leverage your solution or
product, helping to improve their user experience.

Success Story
How ADP Empowers Their Employee
Advocates
ADP, a Human Capital Management solution, story about how they’ve made a stellar impact
uses their online community to engage and on a customer. Meanwhile, customers in the
mobilize their employees through challenges community can nominate employees that they
targeted specifically towards client success feel go above and beyond. This recognition
associates. Because ADP uses the same is shared company-wide and boosts ADP
community for customers, their client success employees’ morale when they understand the
associates see firsthand how the advocacy deep impact they’re making on customers.
program works and how their customers can
engage with ADP. Here are some of the results that ADP has
achieved from their employee advocacy efforts:
This approach helps client success associates • Ambassadors recognized 474 ADP
drive forward new messaging, ensures associates for providing a stellar customer
all associates are aware of new tools and experience in the past year
resources to do their jobs more effectively, • Gathered 24 stories about how the client
and facilitates a peer-to-peer networking site. success team delivered tangible results for
Enabling the development of the client success customers through the employee advocacy
program
team has been a huge benefit driven by the
community. • 70% of client success executives are
active in the program, without making it
ADP also collects success stories in the mandatory
community. Employees are able to submit a
“The Ambassador Rewards Program has had a

huge impact on our business. The platform gives CHRISTI FEDIO
us direct access to engaged customers and nearly Senior Director of Change
Management at ADP
instant, actionable feedback that is invaluable
to our team.”

Worksheet
Build Your Own Customer-Powered Employee Engagement

Discovering your employees is the easy part. Once you’ve invited them all into a community, it’s time to Nurture them so
they’re engaged and happy to help, and then Mobilize them so they can help you attain your goals as a company.
Step 1: Think about how typical HR functions can be gamified and made more engaging through an
employee community. This is how you Nurture your employees.
Function How We Can Manage Through an Employee Community
New employee onboarding
Employee training and

certification
Employee input and feedback
Employee recognition
and morale boosters (e.g.
Employee of the Month)
Internal communications and

announcements
Step 2: Think about how you can mobilize your employees to help achieve goals across the organization.
Function How We Can Drive Through an Employee Community
Social media amplification

of your content and
announcements
Referrals for potential

prospects in their network
Referrals for potential new

hires in their network
Suggestions for new features

and service offerings
Volunteering to help with

committees and cross-
departmental initiatives

Customer-Powered Partner Management
If you work with channel partners, your Reach a larger audience

biggest challenge is often capturing Your partners will undoubtedly have access to
mindshare that they might be using to a network of businesses and contacts that you
evaluate your competitors. Your aim is to don’t currently have. It’s essential to tap into your
be the first and favorite partner that they partners’ networks and extend your reach to a larger
want to recommend to their customers audience by making it easy for partners to share
valuable product data and customer success stories
every time. The best way to achieve this
with prospects and customers.
is by developing long-term relationships,
delivering meaningful education, and Remember, the more their business grows, the more
driving ongoing engagement. your business grows. Including them in initiatives like
content development, marketing campaigns, and
Partners that are engaged can be enlisted to event—that can be shared with their contacts—will
advocate for you in a variety of ways—from help you build stronger partner relationships while
writing blog posts and providing company news, creating more opportunities for their networks to
to translating product descriptions and creating connect with your business.
specialized product demos for specific regions or
vertical industries.
Improve targeting efforts
Your partners may specialize in working with a
Collaborate on customer-facing content
specific industry or vertical that your business has
Engage your partners to create valuable content for been trying to break into or engage. This is an area
your customers, which will help keep those partners where partners can provide valuable insights on
top-of-mind. Collaborating on initiatives like sales the best methods of connecting with these target
collateral or blogs will also increase efficiency and markets, from preferred messaging, to specialized
reduce the time it takes to provide customers with demos, to industry-specific content.
content. Partners can also help close any gaps in
skills that exist on your team.
For example, a leading company in Backup and

Recovery offered community points to the partner
that could translate their product into German,
Spanish or Portuguese. One of their local partners
met the challenge, essentially lowering the vendor’s
translation costs.

Success Story:
How Nutanix Created a Partner Community
to Boost Sales
Nutanix—a leading provider of Enterprise Cloud XTRIBE. These activities are meant not only
technology—wanted a better way to engage to engage and enable Nutanix partners on
and enable their channel partners. Nutanix has the latest products and solutions, but also to
a large global ecosystem of partners, who they ensure the partners have fun and continue to
rely on to maximize their reach. come back to Partner XTRIBE for the sense of
community.
Nutanix already had stellar engagement with
their customer-facing community, XTRIBE, Many Challenges are practical—like encouraging
and they wanted to see if these results would partners to “refine their pitch” and work with
translate over to their partner community. a sales engineer to make sure they can
effectively position Nutanix to their customers.
Partner XTRIBE, born in late 2017, was purpose- But Challenges can also be pure fun—like
built to help their partners understand the key challenging partners to express their love for
solutions, tools, and resources available to build Pumpkin Spice Lattes in the form of a haiku.
their Nutanix knowledge and selling skills.
To date, Eric has achieved the following results:
Eric Selken, Global Channel Marketing Senior
• 1200+ partner individuals have completed
Manager, found this community to be the Nutanix sales and technical certifications.
perfect way to creatively engage and enable
• 2000+ partners engaged in a high-touch
partners at scale, helping to build the close
Experience, where they downloaded sales
relationships needed to keep Nutanix solutions and demand gen collateral, attended
top-of-mind. webinars, and registered or closed Nutanix
opportunities.
Eric and his team regularly create a wide variety
• 3x growth in social media followers since
of Challenges and Experiences in Partner
launch.
“I often compare Partner XTRIBE to Reddit

because it’s essentially ‘the front page of
Nutanix’ for our channel community. With the ERIC SELKEN
Senior Manager of Global
power of Influitive, we’ve created a virtual one- Channel Marketing
stop-shop for our partners to explore, interact, Programs, Nutanix
and learn how they can improve their Nutanix
knowledge to maximize their selling potential.”

Worksheet
Build Your Own Customer-Powered Partner Management

How to engage and leverage the power of your partners:
Make a list of your current partners, their area of expertise, and where they can get more
involved with your business. This approach will provide insight into the areas of your business
where their efforts could be more effective, and what you can offer to get them engaged.
Partner Objective in Community What We Need from Them
Sales collateral, access to solution Lead referrals, industry-specific

Softchoice - Reseller
experts, joint marketing funds knowledge, excellent level 1 support

PA R T 3
Technology to Enable
Your Customer-Powered
Enterprise
Technology
In Part 1 of this playbook, we defined A Customer-Powered Enterprise (CPE) with more

than just a few customers will require the right
the Customer-Powered Enterprise and
technologies to help carry the load. The core
looked in-depth at why organizations
elements of the CPE “tech stack” include:
that embrace this approach are seeing
significant benefits. In Part 2, we added an • A community platform that motivates customer
examination of how different functions activities.
within a business help embed customers • A customer insights platform that drives CSM
actions.
in their processes to fuel results, including
examples of specific use cases. In Part 3, • A product usage platform that guides user
we add a final layer that explains several experiences.
different technology solutions that are Collectively, these elements allow an organization
available to understand, engage, and to Discover, Nurture, and Mobilize their customer
harness the power of your customers to advocates, which is the key to creating a thriving
create a Customer-Powered Enterprise. community that can support their growing Customer-
Powered Enterprise. More technology vendors are
entering the customer-powered space, and we
expect significant evolution in the coming years.
When researching community technology solutions

for your business, look for one that enables a
community that converts, provides critical customer
insights, and valuable product feedback.
Enabling a community that converts

CPE
The most powerful communities are the ones that
allow customers at all stages of their lifecycle to
SE
S
U
E mingle with each other. By providing customers with

CAS a virtual community where they can engage and
TE Y interact with each other, your business can leverage
CH O G
NOL its advocates to turn prospects into customers, and
customers into successful customers.

Influitive offers a robust, dynamic, and easy-to-
use community platform that helps you engage
Why Do so
customers and inspire them to take action. With Many Customer
the right motivation, they will happily refer leads,
promote you on social media, share constructive
Communities Fail?
product feedback, post glowingly positive product
Most companies are sold on the necessity
reviews, and more.
of having a customer community solution.
So why do 70% of customer communities
Uncovering essential customer insights fail?8 The top three reasons are:
A core component of the Customer-Powered 1. Engagement is low. Most communities
Enterprise is the ability to understand your are built for education, not activation.
customers. From website downloads to support They’re focused on content consumption
ticket submissions, customers are constantly sending and self-help. Ongoing engagement is
signals about their account health and happiness. low as most members find what they
These signals are relevant and provide actionable need and leave. They don’t provide
insights that enable companies to predict and any compelling reason for people to
manage customer risk, operationalize the customer participate or take action. And they don’t
lifecycle, and coordinate actions across teams. call on advocates to build engagement.
Of course, these data points are also key indicators 2. Meaningful relationships aren’t formed.
for which customers might be ready to get more This lack of engagement means that
engaged in the community and begin advocating there are few pathways for community
for the organization. You’ll also discover which ones members to build relationships with the
might really benefit from some extra support from organization or other members. Genuine
an existing advocate. On top of that, advocacy human relationships must be at the heart
activity data from the community is a strong predictor of any successful community.
of customer happiness and satisfaction. It can be
3. Technology fails to support the
incorporated into a customer’s overall health score
community. Sadly, 40% of community
for more accurate predictions.
members leave the platform they are
using.9 Many community platforms only
Gainsight’s customer success platform provides
provide a limited ability to encourage
a 360° view of customers and drives retention
and recognize action. A successful
across customer success, sales, marketing, product
community needs to use a platform that
management, and the C-suite.
suits the audience and is designed to
create advocates.
Providing critical product insights
Deep insight into how products are used and how 8
Jenny Sussin, “Top 10 Issues with Proprietary Web
Communities,” Gartner, Nov 8, 2011.
customers realize value enables organizations
9
to target specific customers with meaningful Carrie Jones & Harmony Eichsteadt, “The CMX Guide to
Community Platforms,” CMX, April 26, 2017.

support when they need it most. A rich customer to get a clear view of how customers are using
experience with appropriate user guidance and your solutions today. It’s also easy to collect direct
user communication—directly within the user’s feedback by conducting in-app surveys, which see
application—offers more than just a better way to higher response rates than email.
ensure customer success. These are also powerful
capabilities for discovering and nurturing customer User feedback can then be combined with product
advocates. usage data to provide a better understanding of the
context in which certain observed user behaviors
Pendo allows companies to capture all user activity occur. You can also monitor satisfaction with NPS
in their product without any coding. Analyze specific scores, and see which behaviors lead to successful
page and feature usage, and slice & dice data customers—who then go on to become advocates.
across accounts, users, and custom segments
Conclusion your hyperfunnel, helping to attract more prospects

and provide a simplified buyer journey experience.
With advocates showing the way, more conversions
For businesses to thrive in today’s climate, it is
happen at each stage of the journey.
essential to incorporate customers into every
function. Customers should not only be at the
Creating a community where advocates and
centre of your business strategy; they should
customers at all stages of their lifecycle can mingle
be helping you execute and paddle the boat.
with each other will better organize your customers
and enable them to support every element of your
In this playbook, we highlighted how injecting
business. Providing this community with a virtual
customers into your value chain results in a
space to gather and engage with each other is
higher return on investment for both company
the essential foundation of creating a Customer-
and customer. Using customer feedback will
Powered Enterprise.
improve your offerings and delivery, as well
as inform future developments. Additionally,
By harnessing the power of your customers across
customers can increase the efficiency of your
your business, you are able to acclerate sales,
sales, marketing, and customer support, which
reduce costs, and increase customer lifetime value.
includes the creation and distribution of user-
generated content.
The content developed by your customers

and advocates contributes to the expansion of

Contributors
About Influitive
Influitive is driving the shift from company-centric marketing to advocacy-based
business planning. Our advocacy platform, AdvocateHub, and our team of experts
help the world’s most successful businesses Discover, Nurture, and Mobilize their
greatest business asset: their customer advocates.
We believe the companies that put their customers at the heart of their business
strategy are the ones that will win in today’s market landscape.
About Gainsight
Gainsight empowers businesses to grow faster by reducing churn, increasing
upsell, and driving customer advocacy. The industry-leading platform helps
companies manage customer relationships effectively, track customer health, and
transform the way organizations orient around the customer. Gainsight provides a
360° view of customers and drives retention across all functions.
About Pendo
Pendo’s mission is to improve the world’s experience with software. Their platform
helps companies better understand how customers are using their products, and
guide them to higher value through in-app help and messaging. As highlighted
in Part 1, product insights can improve the supply section of your value chain.
However, without adequate tools, the voice of the customer can get lost. Pendo
offers a solution that shines a light on customer usage patterns and combines it
with user feedback to reveal user sentiment and motivation.
By leveraging those insights, your business is given the opportunity to improve the
product experience, increase satisfaction, and delight the customer.


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The Customer-Powered Enterprise Playbook 1

Presented by Influitive, Gainsight & Pendo

Foreword: A Broader View of Customer Advocacy............................................ 3

Part 1: Introducing the Customer-Powered Enterprise....................................4

Why Advocates Are Essential in Today’s Customer Journey............................ 11

The Hyperfunnel: Creating the Ideal Buyer Experience..................................15

Organizing Your Hyperfunnel with a Community That Converts.................18

Part 2: How to Create a Customer-Powered Enterprise................................. 21

Customer-Powered Customer Success............................................................... 26

Customer-Powered Product Development.........................................................35

Expanding the Definition of a “Customer”........................................................ 39

Customer-Powered Developer Relations...........................................................40

Customer-Powered Employee Engagement...................................................... 43

Customer-Powered Partner Management.........................................................46

Part 3: Technology to Enable Your Customer-Powered Enterprise...............49

The Customer Powered Enterprise Playbook

This Customer-Powered Enterprise Playbook, co-

The Customer-Powered Enterprise Playbook 3

This scenario has played out for years in B2B

The Customer-Powered Enterprise Playbook 5

Introducing the Customer-Powered

The Customer-Powered Enterprise Playbook 6

The Customer-Powered Enterprise Playbook 7

You can break down a value chain into two parts:

The Customer-Powered Enterprise Playbook 8

There is no hiding behind a false brand

The Customer-Powered Enterprise Playbook 9

Function How Customers Can Help

• Build learning flows by partnering with customers to enable all users of

• Motivate your employees to proactively share relevant content with their

The Customer-Powered Enterprise Playbook 10

A simplified customer journey consists of these four

The Customer-Powered Enterprise Playbook 11

The Customer-Powered Enterprise Playbook 12

Veronica is the marketing

She visits a few product

One requires her to use a

The other recommends a free

After poking around for a while, she

Almost immediately multiple people respond, some

After engaging with the online user

Even though they failed to promote it to prospective

Enterprises that are customer-powered encourage

The Customer-Powered Enterprise Playbook 14

The Customer-Powered Enterprise Playbook 15

helping to accelerate movement through • Case studies with customer quotes.

NICOLE DINGLEY, According to Moore:

The Customer-Powered Enterprise Playbook 16

The Recurring Revenue

The Customer-Powered Enterprise Playbook 17

The Customer-Powered Enterprise Playbook 18

In the past, community managers have worked to

their proprietary “walled garden” community.

The best approach is to do the opposite—direct

The Customer-Powered Enterprise Playbook 19

Understanding time and reputation that they lend to a company they

The Customer-Powered Enterprise Playbook 20

“Reimagining your different departments to incorporate customers in as many areas as

The Customer-Powered Enterprise Playbook 22

The Customer-Powered Enterprise Playbook 23