CASE STUDY
Creating a customer advocacy program
Project Date: 2021-22
Company: Dropbox, a cloud hosting, file sharing and collaboration software company
Challenge
As a customer marketer on the Dropbox team, I worked with customers to show how they use Dropbox in their workflows as a product proof-point (through customer stories or other engagements like participating in a webinar). But these were often one-off conversations and requests that felt one-sided. We were asking and not giving anything in return. In addition, as sales and marketing requests came in, we regularly struggled to find the right customer to fill the need.
We needed something to help create more value and a “why” for our customers, turn customer references into loyal advocates, and tap into our loyal customers more easily for stories and engagements.
Solution
My colleague and I spent months of strategy and planning, including:
Analyzing customer advocacy programs from similar brands
Soliciting feedback from sales, marketing and other internal stakeholders
Mapping the ideal customer advocacy journey
Creating messaging for the program, both for customers and for internal stakeholders
Establishing a process for inviting customers to join and engaging advocates for opportunities
Reviewing customer advocacy platforms
Presenting our findings to leadership for program support
Results
The result was the Dropbox Champions program.
My colleague and I recruited 40 customers to the new program prior to launch. We also documented a comprehensive customer journey for advocates and created internal assets to help sales and marketing partners understand and help support the mission, and external assets, including a landing page, to support a marketing campaign inviting customers to join.
Most importantly, we created a process for how, when and why we would engage with Dropbox Champions to streamline asks, limit burnout and ensure value for the customer.
Dropbox Champions is still an active program as of mid-2024. Many of the customers I recruited are still participating in customer stories and other engagements as Dropbox advocates.
Success story
How one customer interaction resulted in long-lasting advocacy
During my outreach to customers using a new Dropbox product called Replay, I contacted Daniel Jackson. Through the interview, I learned how Jackson uses multiple Dropbox products in his daily workflow as a videographer and music promoter. Jackson signed off on a testimonial that was used for the Replay landing page and across various marketing materials.
I also interviewed Jackson about another product, Shop, which he had also been testing. That led to this blog post written by the editorial team (not by me), where Jackson is featured alongside other creatives that I also interviewed for the Shop beta launch. The blog post quoted directly from my interviews.
“Julissa took our organization to a new level of scale. [She] built the entire internal process and SLAs for engaging with customers for advocacy at Dropbox... and continuously found new ways to bring the magic of Dropbox to life for our customers.”
Brie Bunzel
Director of Marketing: Customer Marketing & Advocacy at Dropbox
During my interviews with him, I noted that Jackson could be a great customer advocate for the new, not-yet-launched Dropbox Champions program. Because of how he was using Dropbox and his level of engagement and interest in new products and features, I later tapped Jackson to be among the first 40 customers to join Dropbox Champions. He was added to an internal advocates database where cross-functional partners could learn more about him and showcase his story in the future.
Jackson is still an active Dropbox Champion to this day. He was featured in a 2023 customer story (not by me) about his work, which was also promoted on social media, and has done been involved in other engagements in 2024.
“[Julissa] brought process and order to a customer marketing program that worked to nurture relationships with thousands of Champions. That scale would not have been possible without the processes she built and the suggestions that she made to grow the company's first Champions program.”
Jessica Day
Customer Marketing Manager at Dropbox
Jackson is just one of several customer advocates I engaged early on in the Champions initiative that is still active in the program as of 2024.
Customer in-take form for the Dropbox Champions program (click to view full doc)
Process for engaging with Dropbox Champions, shared with marketing, comms and other cross-functional teams (click to view full doc)
Internal database of Dropbox Champions, shared with cross-functional stakeholders
Internal doc explaining Dropbox Champions program & process for inviting customers, shared with sales and other customer-facing teams (click to view full doc)
SLA document created for customer requests shared with cross-functional stakeholders (click to view full doc)
