Press Releases

The Sant Corporation and Point of Reference Join Forces to Help Customers Increase Sales Effectiveness with Online Customer References

Point of Reference Services Help Customers Satisfy a Prospect’s Due Diligence Needs, Accelerate the Sales Cycle and Increase Customer Win Rates

DENVER and CINCINNATI; May 3, 2005... Point of Reference, a leader in developing and deploying online customer reference programs, and The Sant Corporation, a world leader in proposal and sales document automation software, today jointly announced that the two companies are working together to offer Sant customers access to the Point of Reference system. The Point of Reference solution will help Sant customers manage requests for customer references at proposal stage with a streamlined, online reference system. In an effort to increase sales effectiveness and productivity within the sales cycle, Sant customers will have the option to use the Point of Reference system in conjunction with Sant Suite 7 software.

Sant Suite is designed to help organizations produce winning proposals and other sales documents consistently and quickly. The ProposalMaster module includes a wizard-interface and editor to identify a prospect’s key business issues, and include supporting evidence, such as business strengths and history, success stories and customer references. Sant customers now have the option of using Point of Reference services which includes designing, conducting and digitally recording customer reference interviews and making the recordings available securely on the Web. Within a proposal generated using ProposalMaster, Sant customers can include links to candid, unscripted customer reference interviews, ultimately satisfying the due diligence needs of prospects and giving them real insight into the benefits and challenges of adopting the vendor’s services or products.

“Our customers are continually faced with the challenge of delivering relevant, accessible and valuable customer references as a part of the proposal process,” said Lewis Miller, president of The Sant Corporation. “Point of Reference services are an excellent alternative to the traditional, time-consuming process of coordinating multiple schedules and arranging live customer reference calls, which oftentimes never actually happen. I’m confident the synergies between Sant and Point of Reference will benefit our customers greatly and will help them to increase sales effectiveness and boost win rates.”

By utilizing Point of Reference services, Sant customers can invite their prospects to listen to customer reference interviews online at their own convenience, eliminating time zone challenges and potential scheduling conflicts that can prolong the sales cycle and add additional costs. Sant customers can also organize and segment customer reference interviews by industry, size and business challenges to present prospects with the most relevant reference information available, giving them exactly what they need to make a decision. Once prospects receive a proposal, they have instant access to independently conducted, unscripted audio customer reference interviews which include complete written transcripts. Point of Reference services will help Sant customers to further increase productivity during sales proposal process, reduce costs and prevent customer reference burnout.

“Customer references have always been a fundamental part of the proposal process because they go beyond testimonials and case studies to give prospects a real insider’s look into how a product of service is performing for a company in the real business world,” said David Sroka, president and CEO of Point of Reference. “We are excited about this new relationship with Sant. An online customer reference system will streamline the proposal process even further, close deals faster and help sales teams reclaim opportunity costs—time previously lost searching for customer references and coordinating reference calls for every proposal sent out.”

About Point of Reference

Point of Reference develops, conducts and digitally records customer interviews for easy, secure access by prospective customers via the Web. With an automated and self-service customer reference program, sales teams increase productivity and organizations can accelerate sales cycles. Point of Reference services allow businesses to share independently conducted, unscripted reference interviews with prospects, inviting them via email invitation to listen to candid customer interviews at their convenience. For more information visit: www.point-of-reference.com.

About The Sant Corporation

The Sant Corporation is the leader in sales effectiveness software for businesses that require flexible, easy to use solutions to create proposals, RFP responses, presentations, and other sales documents. Businesses choose Sant to improve productivity, increase sales, and deliver accurate, consistent sales documents to their customers.

Sant is a privately-held corporation headquartered in Cincinnati, Ohio, and has sales offices in North America, the United Kingdom, and Australia. For more information, please visit www.santcorp.com.