Hey there! I'd love to hear about how others have gained buy-in from sales leadership to hold their teams accountable to participate in the reference program: 1. through nominating references, and 2. following the correct process for requesting references. Here's our situation:
Nominations: Though references typically come from/are managed by CX, we've realized that the references we really need in our program (executives, who we want to turn into advocates) are owned by Sales. We've tried in the past to ask for Sales to nominate references, providing all the reasoning as to why it matters, to no avail. I don't have quite enough data yet to showcase how reference calls accelerate deals or increase win rate.
Requests: No specific through-line on reasoning here, but it seems to be the classic back-pocket reference situation.
Ultimately, the leaders typically agree with everything we say about why participation is important, but when it comes down to it, there's little desire to follow-through.
