Channel Voices
Channel Voices is The Podcast for Future Channel Leaders, where we learn the ins and outs of partner ecosystems through casual conversations with channel professionals from a variety of industries, partner types and geographies.
Channel Voices
Seven Elements That Define Exceptional Partner Experience
Tony De Freitas brings his wealth of channel expertise to Channel Voices, sharing powerful insights on creating exceptional partner experiences that drive real business growth. Having transformed five partner ecosystems throughout his career at Microsoft, Adobe, Salesforce, and now Mimecast, Tony offers a masterclass in treating partner programs as products deserving strategic investment and continuous evolution.
At the heart of our conversation are the seven critical elements Tony has identified for exceptional partner experiences: personalization, integrity, expectation management, resolution capabilities, empathy, friction reduction, and continuous innovation. These elements form the foundation of programs that partners genuinely value and actively engage with. Tony emphasizes that "a partner-first approach cannot just be a tagline—it needs to be in your culture, vision, and execution" to truly succeed.
We explore practical approaches to measuring partner satisfaction beyond basic metrics, delving into NPS, engagement rates, retention, and time-to-value measurements that provide meaningful insights across different partner segments and maturity levels. Tony shares a compelling case study from Mimecast where streamlining their deal registration process dramatically accelerated both registrations and conversions, proving that focused improvements to partner experience directly impact revenue growth.
Looking toward the future, Tony discusses how AI will reshape partner experiences, while emphasizing that companies must be strategic in their technology investments. He cautions against viewing partner experience as a one-time investment rather than a continuous evolution, noting that partner expectations constantly rise as they compare experiences across multiple vendor relationships.
This episode is essential listening for anyone responsible for channel strategy, partner programs, or ecosystem development. Tony's parting wisdom—that culture and accountability will always outweigh strategy—serves as a powerful reminder that people ultimately drive successful partnerships, not just processes.
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Hello, welcome and thank you for tuning in to Channel Voices, the podcast for future channel leaders, where we learn the ins and outs of partner ecosystems through casual conversations with channel professionals from a variety of industries, partner types and geographies. My name is Maciek and I'm your host, tony De Freitas. Welcome to Channel Voices. It's great to be here with you, tony. We got together today to talk about partner experience. Now, this subject is so broad. The understanding of it can be so varied depending on who you ask. Which part of the team do they work in? But before we go there, can you please introduce yourself and tell us a bit about, about your channel background?
Tony de Freitas:Yeah, I'm Tony the freighters and I'll lead our partner programs at my cast. I've had the opportunity to build and transform five partner ecosystems through my career at Microsoft, adobe and Salesforce, across different products, partner types, as well as in different growth stages around the globe, but right now I have the privilege to lead an amazing team in the transformation of our channel programs and the evolution of Mimecast Partner One program.
Tony de Freitas:My key objective is really ensuring that we're establishing a thriving and vibrant partner ecosystem through our programs and partnerships that really enable us to drive growth, but also new partner experiences and extending MIMECOS cybersecurity market leadership.
Maciej:Fantastic. Thank you very much for that introduction and, as preempted, the subject of today's conversation is around partner experience, so let's go, maybe, with your definition of partner experience. What does it mean in the context of channel partner ecosystems your industry specifically, maybe and why would it be so important?
Tony de Freitas:Yeah, I fundamentally always believe that, particularly in our industry, in delivering partner programs, you have to treat it as a product that you're delivering to your respective audiences, and so partner experiences, from my perspective, really encompasses all the interactions, the touch points and engagements that partners go through or encounter when doing business with you, either from just participating in your programs, interacting with the different teams in your organization or just the different partner programs.
Tony de Freitas:That's how I tend to define it and the importance I think is really tied to. We know that a great partner experience delivers growth for both us and our partners, enables us to achieve and drive profitability us and our partners. Enables us to achieve and drive profitability. Also enables us to have competitive leadership in the marketplace, reduces costs to serve and, ultimately, it's really about how do we drive joint customer success. And so super critical for us to always have partner experience in the context of what we do for our partners as well as for their customers or our customers, I should say because it plays a critical role in just growing the business and being successful with customers in the marketplace.
Maciej:So, with that in mind, what would be the key elements that would define a positive partner experience? Based on what you said already, right, and maybe from your previous experience as well, if you could mention, do these vary across different industries or maybe across partner types even?
Tony de Freitas:Yeah, I tend to. You know, when I think about the key elements of a positive partner experience, I've been kind of making a note. Probably now over 15 years on, you know what are those elements and I'm at seven, so maybe I'll get to 10 as we move forward, and I'm sure that you know many other folks will have potentially different ones. But when I think about those I start with the key element and not in particular order or priority. It's really tied to personalization. I believe that, from a partner experience, personalization is a key element of that ensuring that you're providing the right audiences individuals, groups or even communities in a really targeted engagement that can be self-service, can be automated or can be in person and really what you're trying to achieve through personalization is maximizing the value of those interactions that you have with your partners.
Tony de Freitas:The second one's really tied to integrity, and I could go through. You know what does integrity mean from a definition point of view, but ultimately it's about do partners trust you and do you follow through on the promises consistently and fairly? That's how I tend to define integrity. The third one would be probably tied to you know expectations. Are you managing, are you meeting, are you exceeding expectations and are you able to actually over-manage those expectations, which I think is important. But this really ties, I think, setting the appropriate expectations or success predictability on your engagement with our partners, or with partners, I should say, the other key element I would say is resolution.
Tony de Freitas:How do you resolve issues, how do you address concerns and how do you ensure that you're driving the bar from a quality perspective in not only dealing with the challenges or issues that you may be encountering collectively, but also opportunities. So resolution, I don't think is necessarily tied to how do you resolve issues, but how do you pursue opportunities that enables you to be successful with your partners and your customers together. The other one, I would say it's probably about empathy and that's you know it's really have you considered the you know the partner's perspective on a particular point usage of a program or service that you're providing? And the other one that I would say is a key element of the partner experience is really tied to time and effort. Are you reducing the effort required for partners to do business with you, conduct business with you, and are you thinking through how do you remove friction out of the business processes that you may have with the partner?
Tony de Freitas:And I would say the last one, and as I think about these key elements that drive the partner experience, is really tied to innovation and it's not so much just a pure technical innovation but it's the ongoing innovation and evolution of that engagement model, of those interactions and the value that they bring. And I would always say that, from a partner experience point of view and we learned this from us all being consumers that engagement, an experience, is not a static thing, it's ongoing. You need to evolve it, you need to be thinking about the value, and also the consumers of those experiences expect more and more as you move forward, and so innovation and evolution, I think, is a critical aspect as we think about the overall partner experiences.
Maciej:I'm glad you mentioned the evolution right Because the whole entry of automated system, the typical partner portal. Now we have the PRMs, the marketplaces. There's a lot of digital technologies that impact partner experience. From your perspective, how has that evolved and is it helping today to achieve that positive partner experience?
Tony de Freitas:Yes, I totally believe it is. I would say that, you know, great partner experiences really require data automation. I would even say self-service in those. But it's really about enabling a fluid engagement as we think about programs. So you're right, fluid engagement in as we think about programs. So you're right, you know, certainly you know, today there are really key tools or must-haves that you've got to have in place. You mentioned one around the, you know, prm or the Partner Relationship Management platforms. I think that's core for you to be successful in delivering the experiences that will provide value but also meet expectations. I think in today's world, it's expected that you have these platforms that really enable you to be able to centralize the engagement and streamline processes across the full partner lifecycle in support of that customer lifecycle.
Tony de Freitas:I think in addition to that, there's other key platforms or technologies that are critical and you could say, well, they could be part of PRM, but I like to break it apart just because I think it contributes and it requires ongoing evolution and attention to how you think about delivering value and partner experiences. The other one would be one would be case management systems. I think it's so critical for you to have that in place. That enables you to provide frictionless support, and it could range from technical support right through to just program support and being able to provide your partners with the appropriate help and support that enables them to be successful. Tied to that, you could say you know communities or the portals which I think you know. You'd say, well, it's tied to PRM. But I do believe that you have to take some of these elements and really apply thought and be more intentional in evolving these platforms to be able to deliver on the experiences enabling partners to help themselves, enable partners to collaborate, have a much better experience, and that leads me to being able to provide what I'd say analytics platforms to your partners, which enables you to really get a true sense of what is the interaction, what's the value that you're providing to your partners. But I think, more importantly, which enables you to really get a true sense of you know what is the interaction, what's the value that you're providing to your partners. But I think more importantly is helping and providing insights to the partners on their business as well as on their customers.
Tony de Freitas:I think that's such a critical piece as it relates to engagement. So you know, going back to you know what are the experiences requires. Is it today? Maybe I can say here's what a great experience today requires. Certainly, data automation, that fluid engagement. And I think it starts at the core with the PRM. It's just a platform being able to take advantage of all of the elements. On the PRM. You could argue that ties to everything else that I was describing a bit from a case management weather tools.
Maciej:Partner engagement came up while you were talking quite a few times. How do you measure partner engagement, partner satisfaction and what are the metrics that you look at and which are the most indicative of a successful partner relationship?
Tony de Freitas:I think that, from my perspective, there's five metrics that I think are key, but I would also say there are also KPIs that you should have across the business, which gives you a little bit more depth with regards to you know how well or not you may be executing from a partner satisfaction or engagement level.
Tony de Freitas:But I would say that most companies always look at well, the ultimately key metric is really tied to partner growth or partner success with you. But I think that's kind of a standard answer from my perspective and I think you need to kind of go a little bit deeper. And so the other key metrics that I would say are important to consider is certainly you know NPS or you know net promoter score, and we have that with customers, of course. But I think from a partner perspective, it is important to understand, you know what's the likelihood of partners recommending you or recommending your program, your products or doing business with you. You know.
Tony de Freitas:The second metric would certainly be one that I think is very consistent in many companies, which is roller rp set or partner satisfaction, and that's really direct feedback on satisfaction levels across the partner community. I think there's some magic associated with that, if I may use that term on the frequency of those, the length of those, and how do you make it in a way that drives participation, engagement and ultimately, you could argue across all of these metrics is how people held accountable to them there's one thing that you that you mentioned there, and as you measure these things, obviously each partner within your ecosystem is a different stage of their journey with you as the vendor yeah right.
Maciej:So it's so important also to dissect that and making sure that we measure that in the right categories where the partners are Right, because if you mash it all up together you might not get a meaningful metric Right Totally totally, totally.
Tony de Freitas:And then the other three, the other three metrics that I think are key. One would be the partner engagement rate, which is really measuring how active partners are in consuming, participating in your programs, initiatives, and that could be things such as simple as well are they using the products that we offer them? As an example, are they taking advantage of incentives or rebates programs? But I do think that's a critical one and ultimately, it's really about you know, are they driving growth collectively with you? The other one I do like to track is in a partner retention rate, and that's really looking at the percentage of partners who continue to work with you over time but actually are contributing to the business. I think that's a critical one.
Tony de Freitas:And then the last one I'd say is time to value, and it ties into what you just mentioned, which being able to understand, you know, the time it takes to drive value across the different interaction points in that life cycle, I think is a critical one. Be it, you know what's the time to value on new partners across our business, when we add new products or we add new bundles or incentives. What's the time to value? How long does it take for us to see value? And that one can be a little bit more tactical in nature. But I think it's critical so that you understand where the friction points are, in that partner engagement enables them to put in place tasks or activities to try and really decrease the time that it takes for you to drive value. So those would be kind of the key metrics that I would always think about and want to operationalize across the business.
Maciej:Thank you for sharing these with us. Obviously, you've worked in quite a few companies. You worked in the channel for quite some time. What are some of these common challenges that you would have seen that companies would have been facing when they wanted to improve that partner experience, and is there any magic sauce in terms of how to overcome these challenges?
Tony de Freitas:Yeah, the magic sauce is a great question and I find myself still learning through this process. You know, I think there's a couple of them challenges and I would say you know, personally I view it. One is kind of just the mindset. You know, a partner first approach cannot just be a tagline, it really being great in your culture, vision and execution on how you do business. But I also think importantly is how you reward the company or the organization by having a partner first mentality or mindset and I've been, even in my career I've had the opportunity to be in companies. That is completely that is the mindset and is part of the fabric to those that wanted that. But the rest of the, the mindset in being able to be focused on a partner first approach, which I believe contributes to how you drive and improve partner experiences, the other key challenge that I see in many companies is this technical debt.
Tony de Freitas:You have to keep investing in new tools, programs, driving operational efficiencies, and you find that at times, organizations are playing catch up and all they believe is that if they just make a one-time investment, they will be good enough. But we know that that's not the case and you need to continuously be evolving. We talked about innovation as part of the key definition of partner experiences, and I think that plays into this. I would say that launching an MVP in delivering value, be it through a program or even product to partners is just a start. You need to keep iterating, you need to keep investing, and I think that's the right approach rather than just waiting for perfection. But I do think technical debt is usually one of the areas that most companies organizations, struggle with.
Maciej:No magic sauce as such, but quite a bit of food for thought there. No magic sauce as such, but quite a bit of food for thought there. Have you got any example, maybe, where you were successful in improving that partner's experience so significantly that the company's bottom line has moved or met any of the strategic goals set by the company?
Tony de Freitas:Yes, absolutely One, and I would say very recently across Mimecast is probably a great example.
Tony de Freitas:We recently rolled out updates to our deal reg process under the leadership of Piper Hyman on my team, and the core focus was building on our initial release and iterating and again making sure that we could further automate the process and streamline the processes and the interaction and touch points between us and our partners through that process, and we are very proud of that.
Tony de Freitas:As part of those updates that we've made, we've certainly seen an acceleration of deal ranges and conversions flowing through the business, and so we've seen an impact a direct impact to the bottom line, to the revenue across both us and our partners, across both us and our partners. But for me, the most amazing experience as part of that was actually sitting down with a partner who offered their insights in how we benchmark across the 80 partner programs that they are participating, and so it was very enlightening to have a partner benchmark us on our updates and being able to compare and contrast how we did business, how we're doing business now and what is the impact of the business. And so we're very fortunate to have partners that are able to give us those insights which make it more real and more tangible on. You know, by improving your partner experience across a specific business process or program. You know what's the impact and I walk away with that experience as something that I certainly will not forget in the rest of my career.
Maciej:That is fantastic. Having a partner, a trusted partner like this, who will benchmark you, that's pure gold, isn't it?
Tony de Freitas:Absolutely, absolutely.
Maciej:The other thing I was just going to mention. It's funny how some companies completely overlook the impact that the deal registration experience might might have on their bottom line. Right, I I am. I am delighted to hear that you have been able to make a, you know, significant difference to the bottom line by tweaking something in in the existing process. Right, a lot of companies put out a form out there even you know an open one, just on the website, and they think this is it. They will come and they will register deals, right.
Tony de Freitas:I guess the magic of this process, as I describe it, is that we're not finished. So we already have plans for what we call a deal rate 3.0. Again, how can we further remove friction points or add acceleration points in? That experience is super critical for us.
Maciej:We haven't touched too much on communication with partners so far. This, surely, will have an impact on partner experience. Are there any particular strategies that you deploy to drive that clear, effective communication with partners?
Tony de Freitas:Yes, absolutely. I mean this for me, is simplicity is the most important principle when it comes to communications. And it's not trivial because sometimes you're trying to express a very complex, I would say, problem, but a complex business process. So how do you do that in the most simplest way? And you always have to put, I believe, the customer first and kind of work back. Of course there are times that you're communicating with partners that you know you don't have to think about the customer, but I do think it is important to kind of start with that principle and you know simplification is key. So when I think about communications, it's got to be clear, it's got to be simple and frequent. And you know, when you think about just change management, many times you have to reiterate, reiterate, you know, do it over and over and over and over, because, especially when you've got, you know, a over and over and over and over, because, especially when you've got you know, a broad partner ecosystem or channel, not everybody's going to see your communications and so it is important for you to, you know, be repetitive on the messaging that you need to be pushing out. But clear, simple and frequent communications, I think is everything Messaging to the right personas.
Tony de Freitas:We talked about personalization earlier. I think is critical. You should be using different formats. Is it email? Is it messages through your partner portal? Really thinking through you know which ones will resonate with the different audiences that you have at your partner, and just thinking through that. But ultimately I have a very simple rule which I can sensibly drive my team mad on this and is if I can't explain it to my mother, we've lost the audience. That's my bottom line on this. So I tend to use that as litmus test is a clear, simple and easy to understand. I think it's critical.
Maciej:Thank you for sharing your thoughts on the communication with partners. Are there any trends that you start recognizing in terms of shaping the future of partner experience? Shaping the future of partner experience, and how should some of those companies start preparing to adapt these changes that are coming inevitably? Because, like you said, you can't just invest once and stay stagnant right. That's never going to do anything for you. Is there anything that you see coming?
Tony de Freitas:Well, I would say that today we can't have any conversation related to what technologies or what's shaping the future of the partner experience without talking about AI. I think that's in front center and I almost view it as kind of a core element to what will shape future partner experiences and already are doing it. So I think that's key. I think the key thing is being smart about the investments that you make in AI platforms and to really enable new experiences across, you know, I would say, the customer lifecycle. What you want to be able to do, I would say the customer lifecycle, what you want to be able to do, I believe, is being able to draw on everything that AI can bring to enabling new experiences, but be very targeted and strategic in the sense of where do you want to deploy those technologies? Either to help the partner be more successful in engaging those initial engagement interactions with their customers through to you know, how do you leverage those tools to be able to enable partners to deliver a customer value, realize the value, being able to provide them the appropriate support. So I view AI certainly as you know, as I'm sure everybody does today, but it's based on all the innovation happening around that specific space. But I do believe you have to be thoughtful on what are the improvements or new experience you want to deliver across the customer life cycle, that you want to enable your partners and then make those appropriate investments. And I think, more importantly, if you do that, what it does also do is it enables you to then start to understand where you may have gaps or where you need to make further investments, but also what it enables you to do is to build out a roadmap that's easily communicated to your partners or where the next evolution or iteration of that investment is happening. So I certainly see AI as a key element and you're starting to see, in pretty much all the business applications they now have an AI agent that really is starting to support this trend.
Tony de Freitas:I think ultimately, trends that will shape and I think have been shaping partner experiences is really tied to you know, I'd say, consumer led expectations In our B2B world. You know we increasingly are always mimicking, you know, consumer experiences and you know the audiences are interacting with us, have those experiences and they expect with us, have those experiences and they expect similar type of experiences from businesses. And also, we have to recognize that partners will always be looking for more and I think sometimes it's kind of a competition between the vendors. That vendor is able to provide this as a partner, we'll go well. You know that vendor is providing me this. Can you enable the same sort of experience or value, and so I think actually that's very healthy competition and it keeps pushing. I think you know all of the vendors that are delivering on partner experiences. Great way to keep innovating and striving to do better and deliver greater value to your partners.
Maciej:I think that it's very important that internal competition within a partner organization right, you mentioned the partner that benchmarks you on your deal registration experience. They work with 80 vendors Yep. Right, you have to find for mindshare and wallet share with that partner, yep. The more you do on the partner experience, the more easy it is for the partner to do business with you, the more they are engaged with you. Ultimately, totally Right Price isn't everything. We have to be thinking about these experiences very, very seriously.
Tony de Freitas:Yep.
Maciej:Appreciate that. Tony. You've listened to this podcast before you know. This question is coming. Tony, what is the one thing you wish you knew before you started your career in channel?
Tony de Freitas:Yeah, it's a great question. I would say for me, it's all about the culture, and accountability will always outweigh strategy. I do think you need both, but without the right culture and the right people, I would say even the best strategies will fail, and that's probably key learning that you know. I wish somebody would have sat down as I finished college and, you know, helped me understand this, because I've seen it over and over. The culture and the people aspect is really what's going to make you successful.
Maciej:Absolutely delighted having you on the show. Thank you so so much for coming on and sharing your experiences, your insights and also what you've been doing at Mimecast. I've been taking notes as you were talking about that deal registration, because I think it's overlooked a little bit Huge. Thank you, tony, for joining today.
Tony de Freitas:Oh, thank you for having me on. I really enjoyed our our conversation. I think we could spend so much more time together. I'm and uh super grateful for being here with you and uh talking through uh partner experience, something that's near and dear to my heart. Yeah, looking forward to coming back again on a different topic.
Maciej:We'd love, love to have you back. Thank you so much, Tony Cheers. Bye-bye. Thank you for tuning into this episode of Channel Voices. I hope you enjoyed today's conversation and gained valuable insights. Don't forget to subscribe, rate and leave a review on your favorite podcast platform. Every bit helps us grow and reach more future channel leaders like you. Thanks again and we'll catch you in the next episode. Bye.
