The problem with running references by hand
Customer marketing usually owns the reference program without owning a system for it. The library is a spreadsheet. Consent lives in an old email thread. Requests arrive by chat, by email and in the hallway, and you are the router for all of them.
Three things go wrong as the program grows. The spreadsheet goes stale, because titles, products and willingness change faster than you can update them. The same handful of advocates carry most of the load, because they are the ones everyone remembers. And you cannot easily show what the program does, because nothing records who was asked, by whom, and how often.
How the workflow runs in lyynx
- Load the library. Download the customer reference library template, fill it in from your current spreadsheet and import it as a CSV file. You can also add references one at a time.
- Structure it. Each reference company holds industry, company size, location, relationship start date, products used, a use case summary, key results and challenges solved. Each reference contact holds a title, a story headline and summary, a testimonial, a case study, success metrics and Q&A answers.
- Tag it. Create color-coded tags that match how sales describes deals. Tags, industry, size, location and product all become filters.
- Attach content. Add PDFs, decks and documents as assets, and add video by link or direct upload.
- Set privacy for each reference. Choose Public, Approval Required or Private, decide which details each contact shows, and pick the contact method.
- Run approval. Every reference contact moves through draft, pending approval, approved, rejected or revoked. Only approved references are shown.
- Invite the advocates. Once an advocate logs in they own their profile fields, set their willingness flags and set their own engagement limit.
- Publish the portal. Set up your subdomain, theme colors and hero image, then invite prospects or approve their access requests.
- Watch utilization and thank people. Review the Reference Utilization report, rebalance toward underused references, and send a thank-you where it fits.
| Reference | Industry | Tags | Privacy | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Example Health (Jordan Placeholder) | Healthcare | Enterprise Migration | Approval required | Approved |
| Placeholder Bank (Riley Demo) | Financial services | Security review | Private | Pending approval |
| Fictional Foods (Casey Test) | Food and beverage | Mid-market | Public | Approved |
| Demo Co. (Alex Example) | Software | Expansion | Approval required | Draft |
Keeping the library current
Stale content is the usual reason sales stops trusting a reference library. Two things in the product work against it. Advocates who have logged in maintain their own profile fields, so the details come from the person they describe. And because the vendor has to ask for an update once an advocate owns their profile, a correction is a conversation with the customer, not a silent edit.
If a reference or an asset is removed by mistake, it goes to trash and can be restored. For a review routine, see the blog post on keeping reference content fresh and accurate.
Getting out of the middle of every request
Sales can use Find a Reference and AI matching without asking you first. Prospects request contact from the portal. You decide which references need an approval step and which do not, so your time goes to the sensitive ones.
Team roles keep this tidy. Members have granular permissions, with templates for a sales rep, a content manager and read-only access, and an audit log records changes.
Features that matter to customer marketing
- Reference library: companies, contacts, tags, assets, approval workflow, CSV import and trash with restore.
- Privacy controls: privacy levels, display controls for each contact, contact methods and consent that an advocate can revoke.
- Branded portal: your subdomain and theme, a public company profile, shareable one-pagers and website widgets that embed testimonials and stories.
- Video testimonials: video on reference profiles, a company video library and shareable links.
- Burnout prevention: the Reference Utilization report and advocate-set capacity limits.
- Rewards: gift cards and manual rewards, with advisory budgets and a maximum for each reward that warn before you overspend.
- API and webhooks: a REST API and signed outgoing webhooks for moving reference data to and from your other systems.
Showing what the program does
The dashboard and reports cover reference performance, prospect engagement, content, team activity and usage. They give you a record of activity to bring to a budget conversation. They do not put a revenue figure on the program for you. The reference program ROI calculator lets you build that estimate from your own numbers, and the reference program assessment shows where your program stands today.