Short answer: Match each prospect with a customer of the same role and industry, brief both sides in advance, and spread requests across a wide pool of advocates. Clareefai matches, books and tracks reference calls in about 2 minutes, so no single customer gets asked too often.
Preparing the call
How do I prepare a customer for a reference call?
Send your customer a short brief before the call: who the prospect is, their role and industry, what they're worried about, and where the deal stands.
Don't script your customer, since buyers can tell. Just remind them of the results they got and the topics that matter to this prospect. Then stay out of the call: prospects speak more freely without your sales rep there. Clareefai shares the prospect's context with your customer when the call is booked.
What questions should a prospect ask in a reference call?
Give the prospect a short list so the call stays useful:
- Why did you choose them over the alternatives?
- How long did setup really take?
- What results have you seen, and after how long?
- What surprised you, good or bad?
- How is the support when something goes wrong?
- Would you choose them again?
Clareefai lets you share a question guide with every booked call.
See how Clareefai books a matched reference call in 2 minutes.
Request a 15-minute demoMatching and protecting your advocates
How do I find the right reference customer for a prospect?
Match on what the prospect cares about most: industry, company size, role, use case, sometimes country or language. A peer facing the same problem is worth ten famous logos.
Searching a spreadsheet or asking account managers takes days. Clareefai keeps profiles for every customer who agreed to talk and suggests the best match for each prospect. The call is booked in about 2 minutes.
How do I avoid asking the same customers for references too often?
Track every request and widen your pool. Burnout happens when the same three happy customers carry every deal.
Set a fair limit, such as one call a month per customer, and rotate. Keep growing the pool by turning reviewers into reference customers. Clareefai shows how many calls each customer has taken, spreads requests across your advocates, and rewards them after each call.
Measuring the impact
How do I measure whether reference calls help close deals?
Link each call to its deal in your CRM, then compare win rates and sales cycle length for deals with and without a reference.
Track which customers and topics convert best, and invest in those. Clareefai connects to HubSpot and Salesforce and reports on calls, conversions and rewards. Management sees the revenue impact of your advocacy program, not just activity.
Book your first reference call in 2 minutes
Clareefai is built around reference calls: matching, scheduling, briefing, rewarding and reporting in one place. 14-day free trial, no credit card, GDPR-ready and hosted in the EU.