Customer Reference Specialist

About the Role:  As a Customer Reference Program Specialist on the Customer Marketing team, you will run the day-to-day operations of our customer reference program. You will match customers with prospects, coordinate reference calls and events, and keep our reference pool current and healthy. You will work closely with your Customer Marketing colleagues and partner with sales, product marketing, product management, and field marketing to turn customer success into proof that supports campaigns, content, and deals, so sellers have the right customer proof at the right time.  What You'll Do:   Reference matching and call coordination  • Match reference requests from sales teams to the best-fit customers based on industry, product, use case, and region.  • Leverage usage dashboards, Power BI, and other reporting tools  to verify customer adoption and usage before matching each reference request.  • Manage the full logistics of one-on-one and group reference calls: outreach, scheduling, briefing materials, and follow-up.  • Prepare reference meeting assets, such as customer proof points, talking points, and call briefs.  • Collect feedback from sellers and customers after calls and flag trends to the team.  • Coordinate customer reference meetings for company events, including customer host preparation, session descriptions, meeting materials, attendee communications, and on-site logistics.  • Manage registration and approval workflows, applying participation criteria and coordinating with sales to confirm eligible attendees.  • Partner with customer hosts to shape focused, relevant discussions that address prospect needs and highlight measurable customer outcomes.  Reference pool management  • Identify and recruit new reference customers in partnership with sales, customer success, marketing (product, outbound, etc.), and product management.   • Keep reference records accurate in our tracking systems, including approvals, topics, availability, and participation history.  • Monitor participation levels to prevent customer fatigue and distribute requests fairly.  • Proactively source advocates to address priority deal needs, upcoming sessions, and gaps in product, industry, use case, and regional coverage.  Cross-functional support  • Work with your Customer Marketing colleagues, field marketing, and sales enablement to bring references into events, campaigns, and deal support.  • Make sure approved reference assets are easy for sales teams to find and use.  • Participate in cross-functional project teams and contribute to program planning.  • Guide sales teams through reference request and participation processes, clearly communicating requirements, deadlines, and next steps.  Reporting and improvement   • Track reference usage and report on program activity and its impact on pipeline and deals.  • Maintain dashboards and validate attendee, account, and opportunity data to support accurate reporting on participation and influenced pipeline.  • Recommend improvements to processes, coverage gaps, and reporting based on what the data shows.  What You'll Bring:  • 5+ years of related experience in marketing, customer advocacy, customer marketing, or a similar customer-facing program role  • Bachelor’s degree in marketing, communications, Business, or a related field (or equivalent experience)  • Hands-on experience with customer reference or advocacy programs, or comparable program coordination work  • Strong project management skills: you can juggle many concurrent requests and drive each one to completion  • Clear, concise, professional written and verbal communication, including with customers and senior stakeholders  • Sound judgment in applying established processes, and the resourcefulness to find answe