Point-of-Reference

 

Coverage

CRM WizKids: Taking CRM to the Next Level

 

Synopsis

Point-of-Reference (www.point-of-reference.com) Denver, CO.

Point of Reference is one of several companies entering the emerging market for reference management.  Once considered by many as a sales backwater, reference management has taken on enhanced visibility as business processes and products become more complex.  Today, it is virtually impossible to sell a big ticket technology item without expecting the prospective customer to ask to speak with an existing customer and many sales processes have foundered on what should be an easy step.

Without good management, references take on a life of their own.  Sales reps go to the well too often and burn out the best customer references and this is especially true in small companies with a small number of references.  Alternatively, the reference is a busy person and simply arranging the reference call can take days or weeks of voice mail and near misses.  When the call finally happens if the reference is having a bad day it might affect the quality of the conversation leading the caller to wonder how satisfied the customer really is.  The list of things that can go wrong with references is long and like it or not we have entered an age where precious little of any consequence can be sold without a reference call, so many organizations are taking the initiative and getting control of the process.

Point of Reference has taken the bull by the horns and is delivering a solution that automates away many of the time consuming and difficult parts of the reference process.  What is left is an efficient and credible third party arrangement that organizes and captures reference interviews and posts them on a password protected Web site.  Sales representatives provide passwords to prospective customers and most importantly, the system tracks who visits and what they spend their time on.  The site then automatically notifies the sales representative that a customer has visited so that the representative can then resume the sales process.

Significantly, since the interviews are recorded many sales organizations are finding that they can use references earlier in the sales process — a distinct advantage over competition, especially when selling into a mature market where prospects demand references very early in the sales process.

Reference management solutions have a lot to offer and in some ways represent the first advance in selling since SFA and sales methodologies first became popular.  This really is not rocket science but few vendors have thought to implement this kind of solution. Reference management solutions have the potential to be game changing innovations in sales and we expect that most sales organizations of reasonable size will adopt one in the next two years.