ReferenceEdge Erfahrungen

Customer evidence and advocacy is a requirement in B2B software sales, but keeping your program aligned and in sync with your account strategy is paramount. Spreadsheets just don't cut it. Integration with Salesforce is no longer optional. ReferenceEdge is a native Salesforce application so you don't have to worry about syncing data and it keeps your reference information right where your salespeople "live" ... inside Salesforce. I was an early adopter of ReferenceEdge back in 2005 and have used it as the foundation of my reference programs now at two companies - one was a Fortune 500 leader and now with a fast growing start up. ReferenceEdge is also committed to success and has assigned account directors who deliver incredibly responsive service. It's part of the offering and not an additional cost.

It's a double-edged sword! ReferenceEdge is so powerful that it's sometimes difficult to administer. You've got to have an administrator who will dig into the software and get comfortable with the interface. A tight linkage with your company's Salesforce admin is also key. That will make upgrades super easy!

The integration into SalesForce is key to optimizing the reference process for your sales team. ReferenceEdge integrates reference prompts on the opportunity page so the sales user can seamlessly move into the request search portal to select the best reference account for their prospect. The reference portal is intuitive and precisely designed to make shopping for a reference swift, while the tool's automation significantly reduces time in the reference process. Reference tracking back to the opportunity and to the referenceable account keeps your reference process transparent and clear of reference burn out! This process simply works!

A crowdsourcing feature for the times when you just can't find a match. Although it's not best practice it does still happen and it would be nice to work within the tool to find a new reference. Plus, it keeps crowdsourcing out of email and drives users back to the tool!

Exactly what we needed to have a scalable customer reference program, and intuitive software for managing our reference customers and workflows that integrates directly into our tech stack (Salesforce).

So far no issues! Everything has performed as expected.

Like with any software, there are occasional hiccups and the opportunity to improve. What sets Point-of-Reference apart from many is their true business partnership, listening to their customers, understanding the industry well and their constant innovation to improve the tool and the user and admin experience. Our Account Director is exceptional and sets the stage for all of that to happen. She’s always thinking, creating, solving and advocating, is super responsive, very knowledgeable about the tool and the industry, kind and a joy to work with.

Overall, the software fulfills our needs. As noted above, Point-of-Reference is always innovating and has listened well to me about any potential enhancements or customized solutions. Beyond the software itself, it would be helpful to have a customer-facing portal to manage open items, submit and track enhancement requests and the like.

Integrations to other 3rd party software such as Gainsight and Influitive. This has allowed us to automate account reference profile status updates and contact reference profile creation. With ReferenceEdge being part of Salesforce, this saves us valuable time and eliminates the hassle of additional logins or security. The built in reporting allows us to track reference activities in various ways to be able to show the true value of our global reference program. The ability to use existing information within the Account Record picklist fields, allows us to create attributes/filters for the sales team to utilize by mapping to this data. If this data is updated on the account record it automatically updates within the attributes/filters removing the need to manually update information.

Within the admin side of ReferenceEdge there are areas where we need to rely on our Salesforce Admin to make updates to settings. This adds a level of complexity to getting the updates pushed out to the sales teams. For example the custom fields within the managed request settings.

So far, I've found it to be way easier to use than the main competitor, RO Innovation. I had a really bad experience implementing RO at my previous company and was so glad to have a smooth, issue-free experience with ReferenceEdge.

Plus, the customer service has really been fantastic. The RefEdge team helps me with anything big or small. They are quick to respond, brainstorm solutions and ideas, and help to train my team to get up-to-speed on RefEdge.

Looks-wise (we are in classic), RefEdge can use a facelift. Although, I do hear things get quite a bit more attractive in Lightning.

I like the ability to easily manage my reference request in my workspace. This allows me to have a clear view of what needs attention and I can directly communicate with my sales team in the tool. It is easy for our sales team to request references also.

I wish there was a more efficient way to add activities to a particular account or contact. Right now I have to update them individually, opposed to being able to update that someone took 3 reference calls, for example, in one update.

ReferenceEdge has helped automate our reference process. As a fast-growing B2B consulting firm that relies heavily on references from happy customers, our reference requests for proposals and calls were getting out of hand. This was no longer something that one person on the marketing team could help manage- we needed the client partners (who know their customers best anyway) to approve/deny requests and have all sales requests logged in the system to give increased visibility.

So far, I haven't experienced any issues with the system. Our account manager has been amazing to work with and has answered every question we had. The only thing is that ReferenceEdge is not a very attractive module within SalesForce, but it does the job and that's really all we need.

ReferenceEdge has streamlined our customer reference process down to just a few clicks. Salespeople no longer use spreadsheets to maintain references and can easily find or nominate references through the software. ReferenceEdge has great features like auto-filtering when searching for a reference and because it's native to Salesforce, we didn't have to train salespeople on a new program.

Implementation and setup are somewhat manual and time-intensive. However, we had our account manager there with us every step of the way to ensure we got up and running in the time frame we had planned.

Native to Salesforce
Ability to customize
Tremendous help from Account team/Implementation to set up up for success

A bit clunky to navigate
Wish there was an ability to update accounts on a rolling basis
"View Only " licenses for management (at a reduced cost) would be nice