Hey folks — I'm curious how you've approached customer advocacy: buying a tool vs. building in Salesforce.
Context:
We have a lot of engaged advocates, but tracking is pretty fragmented (Sheets/Notion/Slack/CSM memory). I'm trying to get to a single source of truth for:
Who has done what (ref calls, case studies, speakers, referrals, awards, etc.)
What open "asks" are out there
Internal owner / relationship (CSM, AE, PMM)
Basic guardrails so we don't burn out the same 5 champions
Simple reporting we can trust
Longer‑term, we'd probably like a customer‑facing portal/community, but right now I mainly need reliable internal workflows.
What I'm deciding between:
Build on Salesforce first: custom objects/fields/flows (maybe with Airtable/Notion as a UI layer), then layer in a portal or advocacy tool later.
Invest in a platform now: e.g., Influitive, Base, SlapFive, ReferenceEdge/RO Innovation, etc., and grow into community/portal features over time.
Would love to hear:
If you went “build in SF/CRM first”
What did you actually set up (schema, processes)?
When did you know it was time to graduate to a tool (if you did)?
If you went “buy the tool”
Which platform are you on and at what stage (team size, ARR, # of advocates)?
What did it unlock that you couldn't do in SF/Sheets?
Anything you wish you'd known or done differently?
Open to answers like “don’t overengineer this yet” if that’s your honest take. Thanks in advance for sharing what’s worked in the real world.
