People Heroes Rising: Fostering Customer Advocacy and Partnerships with Paige La Fever of isolved
Nov 20, 2023Season 2Episode 8
William Tincup
Does your organization foster a culture of family? In this special episode of the People Heroes Rising podcast, host William Tincup interviews Paige La Fever, Sr Advocacy and Marketing Manager at isolved. Live at the isolved Connect roadshow in Palm Springs, Paige shares her role in building customer relationships and driving advocacy.
La Fever fosters this advocacy by obtaining case studies, testimonials, and running isolved's reference and reputation programs. isolved fosters a culture of family with its customers, viewing them as heroes and the company as their sidekick. Paige also talks about the challenges in getting customer testimonials, particularly in larger companies, and the measures isolved takes to offer value exchanges to its customers.
If you feel as if your company can put more work into building a family out of your customers, this is the podcast episode to listen to.
Does your organization foster a culture of family? In this special episode of the People Heroes Rising podcast, host William Tincup interviews Paige La Fever, Sr Advocacy and Marketing Manager at isolved. Live at the isolved Connect roadshow in Palm Springs, Paige shares her role in building customer relationships and driving advocacy.
La Fever fosters this advocacy by obtaining case studies, testimonials, and running isolved's reference and reputation programs. isolved fosters a culture of family with its customers, viewing them as heroes and the company as their sidekick. Paige also talks about the challenges in getting customer testimonials, particularly in larger companies, and the measures isolved takes to offer value exchanges to its customers.
If you feel as if your company can put more work into building a family out of your customers, this is the podcast episode to listen to.
Ladies and gentlemen, this is William Tincup, and you're listening to the Recruiting Daily podcast. We are broadcasting from isolved Connect in Palm Desert, Palm Springs, and it is beautiful. So we got Paige with us today. Paige, tell us a little bit about yourself.
Paige La Fever:
I'm Paige Lefevre, as you just mentioned, and I'm the senior advocacy and marketing manager here at isolved. Tell us what that, what that means. So my job role consists of acts of advocacy. So anytime we need case studies, testimonials, customers to talk to you guys, analysts, or anyone to talk on webinars, it's my job to find our advocates and get them to participate, but then also give back to them. When they're giving to us, we want to give back to them, so helping them to become influencers in their industry. But I also run our reference program, so anytime our prospects want to talk to customers, we find customers that will talk to them, and run our reputation program, so how we compare against our competitors, getting accolades, testimonials, and all that.
William Tincup:
So at some software companies, this is a real tough job. Oh yeah, definitely. Right, because they don't have a great relationship with their customers or they've oversold the software, which happens. Yep. Uh, they don't go out and do roadshows, they're not out there meeting people, etc. I would assume the job's easier, uh, for you because isolved does all of that stuff.
Paige La Fever:
Yep, from our product providing so much to them, helping them make their day to day easier. And free up some time so they're not answering redundant questions that their employees with their employees health service can help them with. It helps but also we create a culture of family with our customers so we put them first. They're our heroes and we're the sidekicks helping them. So, as much as we give to them, they give back to us, and it's not only a win win situation, but we're helping them grow as they help us.
William Tincup:
It's a true partnership. Yeah. I mean, a lot of people, when you talk to software vendors, they don't like being called vendors because it, you know, it's like that's an expense. It's a... Uh, it's something that's transactional, et cetera. A true partnership is what Ron and I learned yesterday when we were doing customer interviews is they think of y'all as their, their extension of their HR department, which is rare, I would tell you. And so, again, like you're saying, they're the heroes, they're the center of attention, you make them look great, software does that as well, um, what have you, you've been on stage a couple times here, so, uh, tell us a little bit
Paige La Fever:
about that stuff. So our sessions that I've been in is helping our customers make the most out of their investment, so everything that we're providing them from our PeopleHeroes community. where they can interact with each other, source advice. But we're also on there from our customer service managers to our product managers, helping them get their answers, questions, get their answers or their questions answered and just anything else they need. We're there for them, but we also have opportunities for them to grow. Continue their learning, grow in their career, help their employees with learning courses and everything. And we recently integrated our university, our learning management system, with our community. So they can go from the community, get points, and learn. And then another. So you have to do
William Tincup:
certification in, in like at one point, get into certification on the products and things like
Paige La Fever:
that? Yep. So help them get certified. And then since IOL is a coveted certification with, I wanna say over 140,000 employers using Oh wow. iol, it's very coveted. So getting that certification is big for them, but also if they wanna get certified in other areas of hr Right. We offer that
William Tincup:
as well. Oh, I love that. What's the hardest part of getting kind of a customer testimonial?
Paige La Fever:
I would say giving back to them. So what incentive or what can we do to give them to help them want to do that act of advocacy? Why is it worth their time? What is the cost of it for us to make that valuable for them?
William Tincup:
Sometimes, especially in larger companies, because you'll go all the way down, um, you span, let's say, 10, 000 employees to 5 employees, so you got the whole range there. At the larger end of that, um, you have to get PR and, uh, legal involved, so before they can... Say I solved is great, which they feel in their heart, they've gotta run that through PR and legal, which is very difficult. Um, um, a lot of enterprise folks Mm-Hmm. they find it extremely challenging. Uh, so, so I'm, first of all, I'm happy that y'all, you're not having as much of that challenge. Yeah. You're just like, how do I create a value exchange? Mm-Hmm. to that, that would warrant. You know, you being on a webinar Mm-Hmm. or something like that.
Paige La Fever:
Yeah. So if we face those challenges, we help our advocates where we're asking for these acts of advocacy, we come back, thank you for doing this case study. Is this approved? And we'll help them to know who to reach out to, to get it approved, make sure we can put it out there. But also when a customer's. Signs on with us in our legal paperwork, they'll know, like, yes, you can use our marketing materials such as the case study we just did. You can use that. Or they'll know, no, you can't. So we'll have that first step first and know, like, yes, we can use them. The
William Tincup:
guardrails will be set in place from the contract and go. And again, once you build a great relationship, they love the software. Most of your customers, again, they're going to want to do something. They're going to want to do something with you. So, uh, I love that. Tell me, you, you know, we saw you at Dallas, at the roadshow in Dallas. Do you go to many of the roadshows?
Paige La Fever:
Yes, I probably go to 80 percent of our roadshows. I go and help speak at them, promote our community, but also... Also, to see our customers, since they're so much like family to me, it's easy to call them up on the phone, let them know I'll be there, and they'll come out and see us. Oh, I love
William Tincup:
that. I love that. Favorite part of Connect so far? Ooh, I
Paige La Fever:
would... One thing. Ah, the customers. It's one thing to talk to them online, work with them to get case studies, ask them, like, hey, can you do a testimonial? But getting to see them in person, you have such a relationship with them that it's like seeing your best friend and reconnecting on a family trip. It's been awesome to connect with them. I
William Tincup:
love that. Now, did you have anything to do with putting Connect together?
Paige La Fever:
So, our events team does a lot of the logistics, getting that all set up, but working on getting the customers here, the branding, anything you see like that, definitely helps with that. You had a hand in that?
William Tincup:
Yes. Yeah, it's funny because I saw you yesterday and the day before, you're working 18 hour days. Oh yeah. Yeah, this is, this is not, well I've told people this for years, that when they're CEO usually has the idea, the bright idea, of doing a user conference. I'm like, the first time that the marketer hears that, say, first of all, ask for a raise. Second, ask for headcount. Yep. Because it's, these things to put on this, I, I mean, I can't even imagine the amount of work that went into all the different, there's stuff on the floor, there's signage, there's people running around, there's donuts, like, it's, it's insane.
Paige La Fever:
Yeah, we definitely have an innovative team, like... with us that they help come up with all kinds of ideas, but we start, once we announce the next location, we're already planning for that location.
William Tincup:
I can't wait. I can't wait, because again, in Nashville, when we talked, it's like, it was great. It was actually really fantastic. I did more of the ALS stuff, uh, than I did, uh, this trip. And it was fun. It was fun going and going to the customer sessions and just kind of being there. Nashville was fantastic. This, in Nashville, it's as if there were not even two events that were the same people. It's crazy. The amount that, just the jump that y'all have made from just in a year. It's
Paige La Fever:
crazy. Yeah, and we definitely have a bigger team this year too, which has been awesome. That helps. A lot more attendees. Oh, yeah.
William Tincup:
Oh, oh, by a factor of, uh, you know, probably 10. It's crazy. Yeah. Um, all right. So, last, last question that, that I have. What would you like to do if you weren't doing advocacy? What would you like to do at isolved? I know, I know, sales, pre sales, you want to be in ops, your own product? I want to know what you, because you could do anything, obviously. So it's advocacy, that's, you could do that for the rest of your life. That's a never ending, that's a never ending gig, and by the way, because of the way y'all treat your customers. It's a great gig, because you put in the work in product, you put in the work in talking to your customers, so you don't have to do something else, but,
Paige La Fever:
do you? If I, if I had to do something else and couldn't do what I was doing right now, I would say sales. I know that, I know it has a lot around it. But I love, like, helping people, being connected with people, but I very strongly believe that our product helps people and it makes a difference in their lives, that I would still be making a difference in the world. Helping our customers, giving them the products they need.
William Tincup:
Right. It's just doing it from a different platform. Exactly. So they're not customers, they're prospects, but then they become customers. As you, as you mentioned, they become a part of the family. Yep, exactly. I love that. I love, again, I love the way y'all treat your customers because it's not, it's not shtick. I was a, a recovering marketer, if you will. And some of that is shtick. It's, it's words we say, right? This isn't words we say, this is actually how y'all, it's a part of your fiber, it's part of your being, you actually do care about your customers, so prospect's no different, you know, again, you're not gonna try and sell them something they don't need, shoehorn some solution in that they're never gonna use. So, we want to create great, lasting relationships. I can see you there. Now, you know people are going to listen to the show, and then they're going to say, you're going to get a call. No, I'm just kidding. Uh, thank you so much for being on the show with us. Oh
Paige La Fever:
yeah, definitely.
William Tincup:
Thank you. Absolutely. And thanks for everyone listening. Until next time.