Scale Your Referral Program

UserGems' Champion Referral signal helps you identify current customers who can refer you into your target accounts because they used to work there unlocking warm introductions and accelerating pipeline generation.

UserGems’ Workflows allow you to send tasks for your team to connect with these customers or automate outreach end to end. 

Step 1: Input Tracking Lists

Make sure UserGems is tracking:

• A list of your product champions (buyers, admins, power users, etc.)
• A list of target accounts you want to break into

UserGems will identify overlaps: customers who previously worked at your target accounts.

And will identify suggested contacts for your customer to refer you to based on the most relevant teams and employment duration overlap.

‍Step 2: Choose Who Should Reach Out‍

Here are 2 suggested plays:

Option 1: CSM-Driven (Manual, for High-Value Champions)

• Use Slack Actions to alert the CSM.
• Create a group DM (Customer CSM + Target Account SDR) 
• CSM sends the intro email to both the Customer and SDR directly from Slack Action.

Pro Tip: Use Workflow Schedules to throttle how many requests a CSM receives per day/week/month.

Option 2: SDR-Driven (Automated, for Broader Outreach)

• Automatically enroll champions into a short, personalized sequence from the SDR (2-3 steps).
• Mention their current CSM’s name in the initial message. 

Step 3: Leverage Suggested Contacts

UserGems suggests contacts the customer might know at the target account based on department and title.

Example message: "Hey Josh, I saw you used to work at On24. We think UserGems might also be a great fit for their team too, so we’re trying to get in touch. If you also think On24 would see the same success, would you be interested in giving us an intro to Alexandra Smith or Will Frank?"

Step 4: Automate with Slack Actions and Sequences

Option 1:

• Send Group Slack DM in Workflows to CSM + SDR
• Create Slack Action step in Workflows
• Create email message for CSM to send to customers.

Example email: Hey Patrick - noticed that you used to work at Databricks which is a company my colleague Jake is trying to break into. Do you still know anyone there that you would be willing to intro us to? 

Open to whatever you think, but some options could be Alexandra Smith or Will Frank if you used to work closely with either of them.” 

Option 2:

• Add to a sequence
• View in Sales Engagement Platform 
• Send one-off emails

Step 5: Incentivize Referrals (Optional but Powerful)

Offer a monetary incentive when a champion:

• Makes an intro that leads to a meeting (e.g. $50 gift card)
• Refers a deal that closes (e.g. 15% of first-year ARR)

How to set this up in UserGems

1. In the signal library, select Champion Referrals and add your reports
2. Build the audience

• Signal = Champion Referral
• Target Accounts
• Remove filter for ‘Contacted = No’
  
  • Because it’s likely your CSM team talks to them all the time!
• Optional: add a field called ‘Last Referral Request’ to your CRM and import that into UserGems audiences so that we can monitor the last time we asked for a referral. Then add the following filter
  
  • Ex: Last Referral Request is before 6 months ago

3. Set up a workflow to add to Referrals sequence.

If your CSM will be sending the email via Slack actions continue with the following steps:

1. Add Group Slack DM
2. Add Slack Action
3. Create email for CSMs to send

FAQs

Q: Do I need my Customer Success team to run this?
A: SDR-only workflows work well too. But we’d still suggest you clear outbound to your customers with your CS team. 

Q: Will this spam my champions?
A: No. Use throttling to limit frequency and only target warm relationships.

Q: How do I make sure I don’t reach out to the same customer too many times?

We recommend adding a field called "Last Referral Request” which UserGems can stamp when the workflow runs. Then, set the audience as ‘Last Referral Request is before 6 months ago’ for example.