Shaping an Advocacy Program To Fuel Acquisition Efforts

Challenge

Observe.AI, a CCaaS point solution, was a brand new player building an innovative way to capture call center insights (bridging Quality Assurance with Speech Analytics) in a very crowded space. The company hit its first $1M ARR, but we needed a way to accelerate growth, build brand presence and stand out. Turns out, we had a huge untapped differentiator: our raving customer fans.

Solution

As the third marketing hire at a seed stage company, I knew we needed to shift the ammunition of our go-to-market strategy to what really mattered: our customers’ success stories. Our product was driving powerful results across sales, efficiency, and fraud prevention through better call insights, and customers were excited to share their stories. I started by identifying the most impactful customer wins and turning them into clear, relatable narratives that highlighted real ROI and outcomes.

From there, I worked closely with our executives, sales, and marketing teams to make sure everyone—from leadership to frontline sellers—was equipped to tell these stories in a way that resonated. I also became the go-to person for bringing the customer’s voice to life, whether that meant hosting panels, moderating events, or championing their perspectives internally.

To make sure this wasn’t just a one-off effort, I built repeatable processes that scaled as we grew. This foundation helped us move confidently at each stage of growth, always keeping the customer at the center of how we told our story and drove growth.

The customer advocacy program consisted of a number of key initiatives:

• Disruptors Interview Series, in which customers shared specific approaches to common QA challenges

• Sales Enablement Collateral, which consisted of weekly training sessions & easy to navigate decks that were organized by persona, industry, and use case

• Customer Exchange Sessions, in which customers applying similar use cases came together to learn from each other

• Advocacy activations in partnership with CS across several key points in the customer journey

• G2 review program

• Customer reference program

Check out more of how I built this program on this Testimonial Hero episode on High-Impact B2B Customer Marketing Strategies >>

I built a customer advocacy program that drove a cohort of loyal advocates that represented 35% of our total install base & drove trust and credibility in the market. Our main objective as an early stage company was closing new business, so customer advocacy was focused on fueling pre-sales above all else. Through our systematic reference-selling program, we influenced 24% in annual revenue by enabling our sales team to leverage happy customers at key points in the buyer journey.

At the same time, I focused on amplifying our voice on review platforms, helping us triple our G2 presence and achieve a 4.7 out of 5 rating, strengthening our reputation and helping accelerate deals.

Observe.AI's growth trajectory went from >$1M ARR when I first joined to $28M in ARR three years later. The company was in the 5% of fastest growing AI startups in Silicon Valley during my tenure.