We looked far and wide to find the most in-demand speakers to take the stage this year at Advocamp in San Francisco December 6-8th. Advocamp is a global business gathering focused on one transformational idea: that the future belongs to companies that develop and mobilize advocates.
This carefully curated group of 50+ cutting edge speakers consists of leading experts in the fields of advocate marketing, customer engagement, and customer experience.
They will entertain you, inspire you, and leave you with pages of ideas to take home. And they can’t wait to meet you either.
Let’s get to know a few of them a little bit better, shall we?
What I’m going to talk about at Advocamp
Technology adoption plays out differently in B2B and B2C markets, and each deserves its own framework—“crossing the chasm” and “the four gears.” I’ll be talking about both and how they are getting combined more and more often in a B2B2C business model.
The biggest CX mistake I see companies make
Focusing on delighters when the customer is fighting with design flaws in their online processes. Delighting people is great, but not until after you have stopped ticking them off.
How I think customer experience and engagement will change in the next 10 years
Machine learning over time will help us remove the design flaws in our customer experience journeys, so that over time it’ll almost become invisible to us, like driving a car. This will create more space to engage on delighters.
Why I believe advocacy is such a powerful force for businesses
People are always in the process of creating and refining their identities, and advocacy creates opportunities to expand and extend ourselves in new directions.
My favourite campfire song
“Play One More” by Ian and Sylvia (written before most of the attendees at this conference were born!)
Find Geoffrey on Twitter or LinkedIn
What I’m going to talk about at Advocamp
In my talk, I’ll dive into customer driven growth. I’ll discuss how to use content (the same stuff you use for the top of the funnel) to engage your customers and create a community. I’ll also be sharing customer driven growth stories and lessons learned from growing 2 companies to 10k customers.
The biggest CX mistake I see companies make
The biggest mistake I see companies make time and time again is not talking to their customers. It sounds dead simple, but I see this mistake too many times.
How I think customer experience and engagement will change in the next 10 years
Customers want a response faster and technology is making it happen. I think the same theories will apply, but new platforms and communication channels will be used. We’re already seeing this start to happen with the rise of AI and chatbots.
Why I believe advocacy is such a powerful force for businesses
Nothing beats the authenticity of a customer bragging about your product or service. Combine that with the fact that your customers usually know other people like them—read: potential customers—makes customer advocacy a very powerful channel.
My favourite outdoor activity
Rock climbing
Find Sujan on Twitter or LinkedIn
What I’m going to talk about at Advocamp
Only a fraction of employees advocate on behalf of their company. We surveyed hundreds of individuals to understand what holds them back, and how you can motivate change. In my session, we’ll reveal the four essential elements of effective employee advocacy programs.
The biggest CX mistake I see companies make
That’s an easy one. Limiting data access. The customer experience of tomorrow requires complete collaboration across functions, geographies, and touch points.
How I think customer experience and engagement will change in the next 10 years
It might be easier to say how it won’t change! Everything about customer experience is changing.
Three trends are particularly important:
1) Where we engage with customers is no longer on a single channel, but a wide range of online and in-person touchpoints. We will get better at seamless data sharing across all of them.
2) Transparency is becoming the norm. Whether it’s shipping status, or a software bug fix, customers expect to be kept up to speed.
3) Scaling customer experience requires empowering employees to act, not just document concerns. This is perhaps the most challenging hurdle our businesses need to overcome.
Why I believe advocacy is such a powerful force for businesses
It’s all about trust. Research shows that individuals trust content from employees more than they do when it comes only from the brand.
My favourite outdoor activity
I love being outdoors, especially when it involves a hike in the woods. Even short hikes can take you to remarkable places.
Find Samantha on Twitter or LinkedIn
What I’m going to talk about at Advocamp
Every savvy business leader knows the value of public customer feedback—on sites like Yelp, TripAdvisor, Expedia, G2 Crowd. But what if there were a sustainable, reproducible way to foster customer feedback that helps to amplify the brand? There is, and my session will explore how simple psychology can be the right kind of kindling for your customer feedback efforts.
The biggest CX mistake I see companies make
I sometimes wonder if brands today really appreciate their customers. I don’t mean in the customer loyalty or LTV perspective—of course we value them that way. But are we creating a reason for them to feel a real bond with our brand? Ask many customers and they’ll tell you, clearly: the answer is no.
How I think customer experience and engagement will change in the next 10 years
The brands of the future will be far more human. We’ve come so far on the technology side of marketing. It’s now time for us to revisit what it means to be a marketer: to create a reason for customers to choose us now, and to give word to their friends and family that they should do business with us too.
Why I believe advocacy is such a powerful force for businesses
Trust and context. Customers trust each other more than they trust us, and advocacy happens to be in the right context, when they’re looking to make a purchase or product decision. As marketers, that’s not an opportunity you can overlook. But it’s hard for some companies to embrace because it’s a formula that favors customer content over brand content.
My favourite campfire song
“Desperado” by the Eagles
Find Daniel on Twitter or LinkedIn
What I’m going to talk about at Advocamp
Content is everything, but how you get to that content isn’t always clear. I’ll walk through the surprisingly simple—yet easy-to-overlook—steps toward getting that all-important content right from your brand’s biggest advocates. I’ll share best practices on making UGC shine and grow.
The biggest CX mistake I see companies make
The biggest opportunity that I see for companies to build their customer experience is to talk to and get to know their customers (and biggest advocates) more. When you take time to get to know your customers, you find out what is really beneficial and how you can better support your customers—and how to turn them into super fans!
How I think customer experience and engagement will change in the next 10 years
I think that customer service will continue to become more automated, so the way that we engage our customers as real human beings will become more and more important. People want to interact with other people, so building community and advocacy around our customer base will become the heart of every successful company.
Why I believe advocacy is such a powerful force for businesses
Advocacy is such a strong force for business because it leverages your best customers to become your biggest fans.
My favourite outdoor activity
My favorite outdoor activity is hiking. I’ve hiked the Grand Canyon rim to rim in one day—which was amazing—and so difficult.
Find Lindsey on Twitter or LinkedIn
What I’m going to talk about at Advocamp
DocuSign’s advocacy story continues to evolve. I will discuss the strategy and tactics that took us from anemic, small-minded advocacy to building a company-wide strategy that has made a big impact.
The biggest CX mistake I see companies make
Assuming their customers are thinking about them all of the time and not creating some kind of deeper engagement.
How I think customer experience and engagement will change in the next 10 years
It will continue to become more personalized, more focused with the help of business intelligence and will become a major driving force in success.
Why I believe advocacy is such a powerful force for businesses
Advocacy makes brands come alive with engagement. Customers want to connect to something that gives them an emotional, euphoric reaction. DocuSign has a unique opportunity to do that from single users to admins, to enterprise organizations saving millions on paper, time, and other methods of coming to agreement.
My favourite campfire song
Find Jonas on Twitter or LinkedIn
What I’m going to talk about at Advocamp
I’m excited to share how I brought Namely’s advocates into the planning process of our first client summit. We’d never done anything like this, and I had no idea if anyone would even show up. I wanted to at least make sure I was offering the sessions, swag, food, and experiences our clients wanted. So I asked them. By using our community, Backstage Pass, to crowdsource everything, I planned what Namely’s CEO calls the greatest day in our company’s history!
The biggest CX mistake I see companies make
The biggest mistake I see companies make is assuming only client success is responsible for client engagement and experience. Client happiness should be at the center of everything everyone does. From sales and marketing to product and engineering, there is no way a business will survive if they don’t ensure clients are always top of mind.
How I think customer experience and engagement will change in the next 10 years
I think customer experience and engagement will become much more of a dialogue between companies and their clients. Companies must constantly listen to their clients and innovate upon their offerings. This goes far beyond building a product or service. It includes what type of events you throw, what channels you use to engage with them, and what additional experiences you offer. Clients know best, and we have a responsibility to listen to them.
Why I believe advocacy is such a powerful force for businesses
Advocacy = authenticity. Just like how we all share on social media to make ourselves look smarter, funnier, or interesting, we would never share something we don’t fully believe. The same goes for advocacy. Clients will only share positive reviews and make referrals if they truly believe, and that is a lot more powerful than hearing from a sales rep.
My favourite campfire song
Find Amy on Twitter or LinkedIn
What I’m going to talk about at Advocamp
Many B2B companies, especially those in more traditional industries, tend to think of “fun” content as something that only applies to the consumer world. They couldn’t be more wrong. When done correctly, humor can be used to help humanize a company, create stronger connections with customers, and build loyalty over time–directly contributing to marketing ROI.
In my session, you’ll learn:
1) Examples of infusing humor and fun into customer-centric content
2) Why this method works
3) How to create balance between fun and more traditional marketing content that supports, rather than competes with, your corporate brand
The biggest CX mistake I see companies make
Viewing customer engagement programs as “just another channel” for companies to talk about themselves, rather than as an opportunity for dialogue and relationship-building.
How I think customer experience and engagement will change in the next 10 years
AI will play a much larger role in customer engagement. We’re already seeing huge advances in machine learning in the e-commerce and retail spaces with chatbots, and that’s quickly spreading to other industries. However, as AI improves at solving customer problems (in many cases, predictively and proactively), customer expectations will increase as well, and their tolerance for error will erode even further. As a result, companies will face an extreme amount of pressure to “get it right” the first time, because they likely won’t be given another chance.
Why I believe advocacy is such a powerful force for businesses
With the explosion of social media, overuse of email and progressively more aggressive advertising, customers and prospects are hyper-aware of being marketed to. Even the most well-written, informative corporate marketing is likely to be viewed skeptically as a result. Advocacy, in a nutshell, helps customers and prospects to lower their guard. It brings a greater sense of authenticity to the content (even though the messaging may be the same), since the message is being delivered by a peer rather than by a party with a vested interest. Consequently, it reduces the pressure the customer or prospect may feel, and in this more casual and relaxed state, customers are more receptive to hearing about new solutions, products, or ideas.
My favourite campfire song
Whatever can be made up on the spot with voices and the occasional acoustic guitar
Find Lauren on LinkedIn
What I’m going to talk about at Advocamp
At Advocamp you’ll hear a lot about how Influitive is a great tool for driving your marketing campaigns—and that’s absolutely true. But Influitive is also invaluable for weaving the customer voice into your organization to drive your company’s strategy forward. In this session you’ll learn key strategies for embedding the customer voice into the fabric of your company, and some lessons learned as Carbon Black’s Manager of Customer Marketing and Community.
The biggest CX mistake I see companies make
There’s a big difference between organizations solely focused on demand generation, and those that put customers first. Companies too often focus only on driving testimonials and referrals in their engagement programs, and don’t see the massive opportunity to gather insight from customers at their fingertips. Involving customers in strategic product initiatives not only allows your advocates to be heard, but ensures that you are doing the right things as an organization.
How I think customer experience and engagement will change in the next 10 years
Focus on the customer experience (with dedicated employees) will continue to accelerate as companies look to differentiate themselves in a competitive business landscape. Along with that I believe that the tools and metrics for tracking customer experience and engagement will evolve with the demand.
Why I believe advocacy is such a powerful force for businesses
Customer advocacy is what builds great companies. There is no better way to drive credibility within your market, advance strategic initiatives, and differentiate yourself from the competition than through the voice of the customer.
My favourite outdoor activity
My favorite outdoor activity is hiking—although I am terrible at it, the view at the top is always worth it!
Find Kate on Twitter or LinkedIn
Responses have been edited lightly for clarity.
