Outbound gets harder every day. 5 years ago, it took 300 activities to book one outbound meeting. Today, it’s quadrupled to 1200 activities. (Insight Partners)

Revenue teams have turned to signal-based GTM to be more strategic, intentional and efficient in generating new qualified pipeline. 

One of the best signals is referrals from your customers to their network – peers, former coworkers, etc. But a referral program is often hard to operationalize as it touches on multiple teams (Customer Success & Sales), and is often unscalable.

Today, UserGems introduces “Champion Referrals” signal to its growing Signal Library, along with pre-built referral workflows and tips to help companies tap into this channel of warm intro’s at scale.

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Why are referral programs hard to scale?

After interviewing 100+ of top revenue leaders this year, 95% admitted that traditional outbound channels are losing effectiveness. Many are now looking for signals to generate pipeline more strategically and efficiently. Referrals is one of those signals. 

Why? Because 84% of B2B decision-makers make purchases influenced by referrals.

And yet, referral programs often get sidelined because they require manual tasks of salespeople researching and making the asks. And, they (sometimes) need Customer Success’ approval before are allowed to contact customers for these referral asks.

92% of customers say they would give referrals, but only 11% of salespeople actually ask for them.

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Introducing: Champion Referrals signal

“Champion Referrals” signal is a new addition to the UserGems Signal Library. 

This signal is a new way to turn referrals into a scalable source of pipeline – identify where your best customers used to work and ask for warm intro’s into those companies.

This type of referral offers warm and credible paths into your target accounts, making it easier to book a meeting and accelerate open opportunities. 

Here's how it works: 

1. Identify Champions: UserGems looks at your current customers or champions and identifies where they used to work.
2. Match with Target or ICP Accounts: It then checks if those companies are in your Target Account lists or match your ICP criteria.

Action: you have 2 options to facilitate the asks:

1. Option 1 (recommended) - Automate Referral Requests: Build a workflow to send notifications via Slack or emails to the account owner (SDRs, AEs) and the Customer Success Manager
2. Option 2 - Individually Request Intros: Your reps can manually request intros (one by one, or in bulk)  from the UserGems app. 

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How it works:

Step 1 - Inputs: Define your champions and ICP accounts (or Target Account lists). 

💡Pro tip: this can be the same lists as the one you have for “Champion Tracking” signal (“Past Champions”)

Step 2 - Request an introduction: 

There are two ways to request an introduction: 

‍Option 1 (recommended) - Automate Referral Requests

Use a pre-built (or customized) workflow to send notifications via Slack or emails to the account owner (SDRs, AEs) and the Customer Success Manager. 

Your team won’t have to log into a new tool and these notifications come with pre-built messaging to make it easy to action.

Option 2 - Individually Request Intros

Your reps can manually request intros (one by one, or in bulk)  from the UserGems app. 

They can directly reach out to the customer or request an introduction via the customer’s CSM. 

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Get started with UserGems’ “Champion Referrals” signal

With the “Champion Referrals” signal, you no longer have to worry about referral opportunities falling through the cracks. 

Uncover new pipeline channels with UserGems signals. Request a demo to learn more.