Good tool, but requires behavior change.
October 16, 2012

Good tool, but requires behavior change.

Anonymous | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with RO Reference Enablement

Pros

  • The system provides more visibility into available references and prevents references from being over-used. It allows the client (reference) to choose how often they can be contacted in a given time period and provides a closed-loop feedback mechanism to make sure the client is providing positive responses.
  • Allows account executives (sales people) to easily request references based on: product Used, customer vertical, location, account size, expertise, etc.
  • Uses a “Five Star” method to show how relevant the answers are when a results are returned from a search.

Cons

  • BoulderLogic is merely a tool. You have to have a culture and cadence around reference management, which may include rewarding employees who cultivate new references. You should also have a culture of expressing gratitude to the clients providing stewardship them. If that culture doesn’t exist, the tool won’t be used because the results will be “zero” upon searching and you could get by with reporting from Salesforce.
  • I seem to recall that integration may be a weakness. For example, if your search for a reference included the ability to see which other clients use a specific product, you’d expect that list to be accurate. I am not sure that if a client purchased an additional “module” of our software and this was noted in the CRM, that BoulderLogic would reflect this new purchase automatically. I’d have to confirm with the administrator.
  • Faster response time for sales to get references. It still relies on an account manager to “manually” approve references and this can be a bottleneck. This is at least based upon how we have set-up the workflows in our company. Also, if you don’t have a culture of cultivating references, the results will show.
I was brought in to evaluate once was narrowed down to BoulderLogic.

Using RO Reference Enablement

80 - Account Executives, i.e. sales people - they are the reference requestors

Account Managers - manage reference approval, main point-of-contact with client post sale
1 - 1 manager as main business user
IT team supports tool
  • Customer reference management to aid sales

Evaluating RO Reference Enablement and Competitors

We were using reporting in Salesforce.com to track references.

RO Reference Enablement Implementation

The process of asking each reference how often they’d be willing to be contacted was the biggest task.
We made assumptions for current clients, and ask each new client once they become a customer.
Along with which specific skill-set they’d be willing to be a reference.

RO Reference Enablement Training

  • In-person training

RO Reference Enablement Support

RO Reference Enablement Reliability

No known issues

Integrating RO Reference Enablement

  • Salesforce.com
Single sign-on.

Relationship with RO Innovation

I believe there was volume discount based on “banded” approach.

Comments

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