Customer Reference and Advocacy Pros to Exchange Best Practices at the 2014 Summit on Customer Engagement

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Oct 02, 2013, 08:30 ET

REDWOOD CITY, Calif., Oct. 2, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Top Customer Reference and Advocacy professionals will exchange best practices and learn from top experts in the field at the 2014 Summit on Customer Engagement on February 25-26, 2014 in Redwood City, CA.

Summit participants will learn how to:

Get more—and better quality—customers to provide references, referrals, collateral and the like.
Establish the strategic importance of—and the necessary funding for—customer reference and advocacy programs.
Leverage customer communities and social media to create more customer advocates and influencers.
Develop engagement strategies that provide the full range of ways in which customers want to engage with you: in communities, advisory boards, MVP programs.

Participants who register now can insure a spot and receive a limited time $200 early registration discount.

It's impossible to exaggerate the growing importance of customer reference and advocacy programs to businesses today. As a group of 11 leading senior executives in Big Data put it at an executive breakfast during the 2013 VMworld last month in San Francisco, CA, "Whatever we're trying to communicate to buyers in our market—our customers can say it better than we can."

This year's theme is "The Other 90 percent," says Bill Lee, author of "The Hidden Wealth of Customers" (Harvard Business Review Press, 2012) and President, Customer Reference Forum, which has hosted the Summit and its predecessor events for nine years. "Like our smart phones and laptops, companies use only 10 percent of the immense capabilities of their customer references and advocates," says Lee. "The 2014 Summit is about tapping the full 100 percent."

"We get very hands on, very practical, at the 2014 Summit," says Lee. Participants will learn, for example, how Citrix engages its impressive marquee brand customers—such as Deutsche Bank, ITV, Citi, Royal Bank of Scotland, the US Army, Aetna, NYSE, JPMorgan and others--to fully leverage their considerable ability to help Citrix grow profits.

They'll also learn how SAP developed a mobile customer reference app that gives field sales people instant access on their iPads to the most current reference customer information and collateral, helping them accelerate the sales cycle and close deals. "No more 'I'll get back to you on the reference information you requested,' " says Lee.

For information, go to http://www.customerreferenceforum.com/event2014/index.php

TESTIMONIALS

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=idzgJ7SjNvk

"There's really nothing I've seen like it in the country."

Lisa Arthur, CMO, Teradata Applications

"Wonderful conference! I can honestly say it changed my life."

Beth Gallob, Senior Manager, Marketing Communication, Blackbaud

"A very worthwhile conference. I have always recommended it. Ignacio Lalana, Reference Program Manager, EMC

"This was my first Summit and it delivered great value for the time I spent--and the 22 hours fluting time from the UK!"

Barbara Jenkins, Director, Global Customer Advocacy, QlikTech

"I can actually say the Summit on Customer Engagement made it possible for me to create a reference program."

Charlotte Lilley, Customer Programs Manager, Box

Summit sponsors include well-established, highly knowledgeable firms in the advocacy space, such as Big Sky Communications, Boulder Logic, inEvidence, Mainstay Salire, Metia, Point of Reference, Service Research Center, TechValidate and others.

About Bill Lee

Lee is the foremost authority in the world on customer advocacy and engagement. Forbes Online columnist Dorie Clark called his book, "The Hidden Wealth of Customers," "one of the most insightful business books I've read this year." When it comes to the dramatic changes in marketing and business growth strategies today, PRWeek has called Lee "one of the loudest, strongest and most respected authors."

Bill has spoken to audiences for Forrester Research, the International Advertising Association (IAA), the Marketing Executives Networking Group (MENG), the Net Promoter Annual Summit (U.S.), the Business Marketing Association, the American Marketing Association, the Social Media Club and others.

He is frequently quoted by major media outlets, such as The Wall Street Journal, Fast Company, Forbes Online, CRM Magazine, Rain Today, 1to1 Marketing, and others.

Bill writes regularly for the Harvard Business Review (HBR) Blog Network. His article, Marketing is Dead was one of the most widely read and commented on in the history of the network, receiving nearly 600 comments and more than 4,000 recommendations on HBR's Facebook page.

He runs the world's best established and most respected educational conferences on customer references and advocacy. Nine years ago, he began building the foundational educational conferences for customer references and advocacy, including Customer Reference Forum, the Summit on Customer Communities, the CAB (Customer Advisory Board) Exchange Summit, and now the Summit on Customer Engagement. Last year his firm, Customer Reference Forum, has launched a teleconference series, The Master Class Series on Customer Reference Programs.