At GoCardless, we understand that the true essence of success lies in the relationships we forge with our customers. Our Customer Advocacy program, established 4.5 years ago, has become a testament to the power of deeply integrated customer partnerships. From the very beginning, our objective has been to get closer to our customers, share their stories, and create long-term advocates who are invested in our mutual growth.
We lead every engagement with the opportunity to drive joint value into both organizations, always tailored around our customers’ priorities.
This approach has allowed us to build exceptionally strong and strategically aligned relationships, paving the way for champions to emerge and convert into powerful advocates who deliver maximum value back to the business.
Fostering Powerful Partnerships: The Key to Unlocking Mutual Success
What truly sets our Customer Advocacy program apart and has supercharged our impact is our position within the organization. By residing within the Customer Success function, we have the unique advantage of building exceptionally strong and strategically aligned relationships with our customers. This integration allows us to deeply understand their needs, challenges, and aspirations, enabling us to tailor our approach and create solutions that drive genuine value for both parties.
Once we get this right, we see champions convert into powerful advocates who deliver maximum value back to the business.
Turning Champions into Advocates: A Transformative Journey
The impact of our Customer Advocacy program is evident in the contribution it makes back to the business. In the UK and Ireland, our team operates with a key performance indicator focused on Influenced Bookings. Last year, we had a target to influence 30% of total bookings won, and we significantly exceeded this, achieving an impressive 35% overall. This represents a substantial 14% increase year-over-year, showcasing the accelerated effectiveness of our program and its growing commercial footprint.
Globally, we tracked that 14% of all deals closed were influenced by our customer advocacy content. This influence is qualified by the meaningful sharing of customer story collateral with prospects, ensuring genuine impact. The global reach of our advocacy is highlighted by our regionally agnostic influence – a UK and Ireland story influenced two bookings in France, and an Australia and New Zealand story influenced a French booking, demonstrating the universal appeal and effectiveness of the content we produce.
Elevating Customer Engagement: Igniting Connections that Matter
We are constantly evaluating additional ways in which we can leverage customer relationships to make a bigger impact on GoCardless. In the past year, we successfully hosted three Key Client Dinners and piloted a new, ‘Payments in Practice’ workshop-style event launched to provide technical expertise on specific product offerings and implementation.
Our objective with these events was to bring together strategically targeted customers to network with peers, learn from our experts, and meet our leadership team to accelerate commercial conversations.
We tracked eight bookings uniquely influenced from existing customers attending these events, highlighting the invaluable importance of face-to-face interaction in strengthening customer relationships and the impact we’re having on the commercial performance of the business.
Scaling Impact: The Future of Customer-Centric Marketing
We’ve recently expanded the remit of our team to include Customer Marketing, enabling us to build on the momentum of our Advocacy and Engagement activities and drive strategic and scalable nurture campaigns into the sales-led customer base. While it’s still early days, we’re excited to have the opportunity to lead with customer value and build campaigns that help our customers accelerate the benefits of GoCardless and drive a commercial impact on the business.
In summary, the GoCardless Customer Advocacy program is a powerful, impactful, and uniquely positioned initiative that deserves to be recognized as the Customer Advocacy Program of the Year. Our strategic integration within Customer Success, coupled with our proven ability to influence bookings, produce high-quality, scalable customer stories, and execute impactful customer engagement events, showcases a program that consistently delivers exceptional value and sets a new standard for customer advocacy.
