Why Your Customer Reference Program Should Live Under Sales

The Advocacy Channel: A Customer Marketing Podcast

Where should your customer reference program live in your organization? While most companies place it under Marketing or Customer Success, Sage Intacct took a different approach by putting it under Sales - with remarkable results.

In this episode, we're joined by Kara Manfredi and Simon Le-Fevre from Sage Intacct, who share their journey of transforming a struggling customer reference program into an award-winning revenue driver. They discuss how moving the program under Sales led to:

- Faster reference turnaround times

- Stronger executive buy-in and budget support

- Better sales team adoption and engagement

- Direct connection to revenue impact

- Improved coordination with marketing initiatives

Kara and Simon share practical insights on making this transition, from gaining stakeholder support to measuring success. Whether you're looking to start a reference program or enhance an existing one, this episode offers a fresh perspective on organizational structure that could transform your approach to customer references.

Learn how this innovative move helped Sage Intacct win "Customer Marketing Team of the Year" at the Customer Marketing Alliance Awards. For anyone involved in customer reference programs, customer marketing, or sales enablement, this episode provides actionable insights on aligning customer advocacy more closely with revenue generation.

Connect with Kara on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/karamanfredi/

Connect with Simon on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/simon-le-fevre-614a2515/

Connect with us:

Get more customer marketing insights and strategies at impact.com/blog/

Connect with host Will on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/wifraser/

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