How a SaaS Platform Allowed This Tech Startup to Turn Customers into AdvocatesCentralized software leads to superpowered customer service and a huge productivity boost.

Influitive, a Toronto-based marketing technology startup, helps enterprise companies identify and mobilize their strongest online advocates to encourage referrals, references and product reviews. In 2013 Influitive was growing quickly, and execs wanted to follow the company's own playbook by converting customers into advocates.

To pull this off, Influitive "had to provide a phenomenal customer experience," says Chad Horenfeldt, vice president of customer success. Easier said than done, since the budget-strapped, 20-person company had just two people on staff handling customer service requests through lengthy email chains.