We’re evaluating how to manage customer experiences around logo usage, quotes, case studies, and speaking engagements for 2025. As we work in the financial sector, we’re dealing with extra scrutiny on what needs to be formally agreed to. Many of our customers have had their marketing rights removed in their initial contracts, so there are scenarios where we need to go back to them to clarify what we can and can’t do. (which is also a best practices to let the customer know how we are using their voice, right!)
My main question is: What are your best practices regarding customer agreements for logos, quotes, case studies, speaking engagements, etc.? Do you manage these through separate agreements, or is there a single agreement that covers all these requests?
Once you get the " yes, " it's not always the most enjoyable part of the job, but we’re reassessing how to handle these requests more effectively. We would love to hear how others approach this.
(Does anyone have the magic to make this part easy. 😉)
At my last company, we didn't really do logo rights. We had a policy of using any customer logos unless they told us not to. At my current company, those things are in the contract. They are frequently stricken out, and eventually I'll tackle how to better educate reps to try to keep more of those terms into the contracts. I think the question about agreements is largely driven by legal and how conservative they want to be. The legal teams I've worked with have liked an agreement for each activity, unless they're kind of linked together. But, we don't need an agreement for everything. For instance, with quotes and testimonials, I prefer to just work with documented agreements like an email or recording or something.
I want to make this process easier, so I'm feeling out the possibility of using basically checkbox forms for consent, but that's a work in progress.
We have this built into contracts and customers can strike that out or revise to something like, "Can use with express permission for a particular use case." And we keep a record (not perfectly) of which permissions we have.
If we do a specific advocacy activity (like a case study), I let them know where, when, and how we're using their case study. So we have freedom to repurpose, turn it into carousels for social, etc. And we keep those live unless a customer churns and/or asks to take it down (like if they've acquired a competitor).
It's also part of our 2025 plan to streamline how we track all this, and we'll likely pull it into Airtable. Working on requirements in Q1.
We cover logos permissions and press release mentions in our MSA. All other activities I have a single form I use where they check off the activity they are participating in and sign it. These agreements are good for five years and we store them in our contract management system. For our references program where customers can submit content in Deeto I have a click-to-sign pop up in the onboarding process when they agree to allowing us to use the content.
We just rolled out a clause this year for our B2B accounts, which includes naming, logo, and a brief description of their use case for sales, marketing, and IR materials.
At my previous company, we had the same clause baked in to the contracts, but had a bit more flexibility where the Legal team could adjust the rights pretty quickly (e.g. a customer may only agree to IR and naming, not logo rights)
My recommendation is to ask for as much as you can up front, and stay flexible on pushback. Worst case is they say no 🙂
This is incredibly insightful—thank you for sharing! I really like the idea of incorporating a checkbox into a single agreement.
Currently, over 50% of our customer base has had the language removed from their contracts, so we’re in a bit of a backtracking situation.
A follow-up question for clarity: What’s your threshold for approvals? For example, if a customer approves logo usage, do you follow up with them again to formally approve a quote via a separate document? (or that is more of a courtesy awareness)
I assume more comprehensive uses, like case studies, would still require formal approval documentation if not detailed previously.
For us, the clause is only for naming rights (primarily used for talk tracks on sales, marketing, and IR — "Joe's Crab Shack is a customer"), logo rights (for logo parades on web pages/pitch decks), and a "brief description of their use case" ("Joe's Crab Shack uses us to store, share, and secure their content")
For anything more than that, including using a quote from something like a Gong call or a formal case study interview, requires a separate release form. YMMV with this, though — we are a publicly traded company and our Legal team is a bit more intense (rightfully) about endorsements
That said — we are in the process of implementing Deeto, which should help us scale the number of case studies/quotes from customers. Tools like Deeto have the agreement/reference clause baked into their Ts&Cs, so by opting in and approving the content through Deeto, customers are proactively signing off on allowing us to use their testimonial in public capacities
