Glossary

Customer reference management glossary

Short, plain definitions of the terms people use when they run a customer reference program. Each term links to a longer explanation and to a tool or feature that puts it to work.

Advocate burnout

Advocate burnout is the point at which a customer who has agreed to act as a reference becomes reluctant or unwilling to keep doing so because they have been asked too often.

Blind reference

A blind reference is a conversation a buyer has with one of a vendor's customers that the vendor did not arrange and may not know about.

Case study

A case study is a written or recorded account of how one customer used a product to solve a specific problem, told with the customer's approval.

Customer advocacy

Customer advocacy is the practice of inviting satisfied customers to speak for a product in their own words, through references, testimonials, reviews, case studies and events.

Customer advocate

A customer advocate is a person at a customer company who has agreed to share their experience of a product with the vendor's prospects or with the public.

Customer reference

A customer reference is an existing customer who has agreed to vouch for a vendor by sharing their experience with a prospective buyer.

Peer review

In B2B buying, a peer review is an assessment of a product written by someone who uses it and published where other buyers can read it.

Reference call

A reference call is a live conversation in which a prospective buyer asks one of a vendor's existing customers about their experience with the product.

Reference library

A reference library is the organized record of every customer who has agreed to act as a reference, with the details needed to match each one to a prospect.

Reference program

A reference program is the set of people, rules and records a company uses to recruit customer references, match them to prospects and look after them over time.

Reference request

A reference request is an ask for a customer reference, made either by a prospect or salesperson who needs one for a deal or by a vendor inviting a customer to take part.

Reference taxonomy

A reference taxonomy is the agreed set of categories and tags used to classify customer references so that the right one can be found for a given prospect.

Reference utilization

Reference utilization is a measure of how often each customer reference is engaged over a set period, compared with how often they are willing to be.

Social proof

Social proof is evidence that other people have chosen and benefited from a product, which a buyer uses to reduce the risk of their own decision.

Run your reference program the advocate-first way.

Join the lyynx pilot. 90 days free. Limited to 50 founding companies. No credit card required.

Join the lyynx pilot