> For the complete documentation index, see [llms.txt](https://docs.slapfive.com/llms.txt). Markdown versions of documentation pages are available by appending `.md` to page URLs; this page is available as [Markdown](https://docs.slapfive.com/getting-started/slapfive-best-practices/slapfive-self-guide-enablement/workstreams-and-workflow-automations.md).

# Workstreams & Workflow Automations

Implementation Workstreams

A SlapFive program can support multiple customer engagement workstreams. While the same customer may participate across several workstreams, each has a different objective, audience, workflow, and measure of success.

The four primary workstreams are:

* **Advocacy Workstream** — Activate customers to tell their stories and participate in advocacy opportunities.
* **Community Workstream** — Build ongoing customer engagement, connection, education, and participation.
* **Reference Workstream** — Connect qualified customers with prospects to support active sales opportunities.
* **Referral Workstream** — Empower customers to introduce or recommend your organization to people in their network.

***

### Advocacy Workstream

#### Purpose

The Advocacy Workstream focuses on identifying, activating, and engaging customers who are willing to share their experiences and participate in activities that amplify the voice of the customer.

Includes:

* Nominations:
  * from Sales in SFDC
  *  from CS in their CSP
  *  from internal teams via a custom form or survey
* Advocate sourcing: Reviews
  * Job change tracker following advocates to new roles/companies, and advocate recongization
  * NPS/Health Score Advocate Indicators
  * Useage/Product Signals

#### Key Goal

Build a healthy, engaged, and scalable advocate pool while making it easy for customers to participate in the ways they prefer.

***

### Community Workstream

#### Purpose

* Turn positive comments in community discussions into target customers to invite to your program in SlapFive.
* Have community discussions trigger the prompting of a member to share a story by responding to a SlapFive prompt.
* Offer SlapFive opportunities to perform acts of advocacy to community members from within a thread or a dedicated page.
* Reward actions that customers take in the community by incrementing their engagement score in SlapFive.

#### Common Community Activities

Community programs may include:

* Peer-to-peer discussions
* Educational content
* Events
* Webinars
* Product conversations
* Customer networking
* Challenges
* Surveys
* Feedback opportunities
* Exclusive customer content
* Recognition
* Customer announcements
* Advocacy opportunities

#### Relationship to Advocacy

Community and advocacy can work together, but they are not the same thing.

**Community creates engagement. Advocacy activates customer voice and tracks their engagement.**

Community activity can, however, provide valuable signals for identifying potential advocates.

#### Typical Workflow

**Join Community** → **Profile Sync** → **Advocacy Review** → **Welcome & Opt-In** → **Select Activities** → **Active Advocate** → **Profile Updated**

*Community members flow into SlapFive as Targeted Members. Once reviewed, they receive an automated invitation to join the advocacy program and select the activities they’re willing to participate in. After opting in, their status changes to Member, their profile is updated with their preferences, and the Advocacy team is notified.*

***

### Reference Workstream

#### Purpose

The Reference Workstream is specifically designed to support Sales by connecting prospects with existing customers who can speak credibly about their experience.

From sales the request is tied to a **sales opportunity and so we can track back influenced revenue when the deal is closed won.**

#### Typical Reference Request

A Sales representative may need:

> An enterprise healthcare customer in North America using Product X who can speak about implementation and business outcomes.

The reference workflow helps identify customers who meet those criteria.

#### Typical Workflow

**Sales Request → Requirements Captured → Match Advocates → Review/Approval → Customer Ask → Reference Connection → Completion → Tracking**

#### Advocate Fatigue

Reference management should also consider how frequently customers are being used.

Organizations can establish rules around customer usage—for example, limiting reference participation to a defined frequency and pausing customers from additional requests after they have reached that threshold.

What most customers are doing here is once the Member completed an activity as a completed reference for a customer they can do that one time in a quarter only.  After they complete a reference activity they are paused until 3 months from that date**.**

***

### Referral Workstream

#### Purpose

The Referral Workstream is focused on turning customer advocacy into **new pipeline and introductions.**

Instead of asking a customer to speak with an existing prospect, the organization empowers the customer to introduce or recommend the company to someone within their own network.

This distinction is important:

**Reference:**\
“We have a prospect. Will you speak with them?”

**Referral:**\
“Who in your network could benefit from what we've helped you accomplish?”

#### Typical Referral Workflow

A referral program might allow an advocate to:

1. Agree to participate in the referral program.
2. Share or record their personal customer story.
3. Receive a personalized Story or Board containing their experience.
4. Share that content with their professional network.
5. Provide their network with a clear call to action.
6. Allow an interested prospect to request more information or a demo.
7. Capture the resulting referral lead.
8. Connect the referral activity to pipeline and eventual revenue.

***

## The Bigger Strategy

The four workstreams ultimately serve different parts of the customer journey:

| Workstream     | Primary Objective | Typical Outcome                |
| -------------- | ----------------- | ------------------------------ |
| **Community**  | Engage            | Participation & relationship   |
| **Advocacy**   | Activate          | Customer voice & proof         |
| **References** | Influence         | Sales opportunity acceleration |
| **Referrals**  | Generate          | New leads & pipeline           |