{"id":229,"date":"2020-04-10T06:23:00","date_gmt":"2020-04-10T06:23:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.qandle.com\/blog\/?p=229"},"modified":"2024-01-26T17:35:43","modified_gmt":"2024-01-26T17:35:43","slug":"effective-strategies-beyond-customer-references","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.qandle.com\/blog\/effective-strategies-beyond-customer-references\/","title":{"rendered":"Why speaking to customer references does NOT work, and what you should do instead!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Like all B2B companies, we happily obliged when prospective customers asked for references of our current customers. After all, it would be the last step before they put pen to paper. Our customers would say good things about us (obviously!), and the prospects would become customers soon (and then in turn, say good things about us, and the process will continue). Seems a rather innocuous win-win process. Doesn\u2019t it?<\/p>\n\n

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But, we stopped doing it once we realized that it doesn\u2019t work.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

We followed the exact same process before buying a software product (CRM software) ourselves. We contacted three of their customers from the same domain as us, and all of them gave glowing recommendations. Naturally, we went ahead and bought the product.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But, it didn\u2019t work for us. Six months and many unproductive meetings (to find the root cause of this failure) later, we decided to chuck the product. And along with it, this process of asking for references before purchasing a B2B product.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then, we set out in search of truth and asked people about their experiences with this reference process. The feedback shocked us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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87% business leaders mentioned that the process has not worked for them as well.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Like true entrepreneurs, we set sail to find if there was a better way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first step was to understand why do we ask for references before purchasing a high-involvement B2B product?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our detailed research (which involved reaching out to our professional connections, and prospects) revealed that there are only two reasons why we seek customer references before making such a purchase.<\/p>\n\n \n