LONG surveys are easy to create but generally suck for respondees and the data can be poor too.

The 2010 global survey of customer reference professionals goes live on 4th October and we want to ask the TOP 20 QUESTIONS REFERENCE PROS WANT ANSWERED.

Of course they have to be questions you would answer yourself. We need 20 questions for the 2010 reference professionals survey. What’s yours?

The 2009 inEvidence survey was a big success, but this year we want to do something a bit different and give our friends and colleagues in the reference community the chance to get answers to the questions they’ve always wanted to ask.

We all know long surveys are easy to create but hard to complete (also the stats become less valid as few people actually complete lengthy questionnaires) so we are staying with our 20-question philosophy.

We will also be asking all the major specialist customer reference agencies the same questions from their perspectives (there’s a lot of knowledge here) and will show these alongside client-side responses.

Here’s a chance to pose your burning question to over 100 other customer reference professionals and get answers from a global perspective. Email us now with your question/s and we will endeavour to include them in the survey which goes live 4th October.

One thing to consider is that your question has to be something you would be prepared to answer yourself.
Here’s an idea of some of the topics we plan to cover just to get you started:

Channel reference programmes – gaining visibility of reference customers

Measurement – who is measuring what and how. Have you gone full-circle and how is this info being used

Reference usage – avoiding overuse, typical reference life span

Social – how are social media or social networks being used successfully

Reference recruitment – how, where, who, also if loyalty programmes work in enterprise b2b

Reference materials – formats, localisation, legal, measuring use?

Sales engagement – carrots, sticks, ego boost, comms, education, best-practice
If you did not see the 2009 survey you can download a copy here.