Ramping Up Referrals – Sales Tip
91% of customers state they’d give referrals. Only 11% of sales people ask for referrals… Dale Carnegie
A simple but effective way to increase your business is to ask your customers for referrals. If you’ve given them exceptional service full of WOW moments (“How To Fall Back In Love With Your Business – Chapter Seven -Implementing Moments of Truth), this should happen quite naturally. But that’s a passive uncontrollable strategy and a much smarter way is to create opportunities and habits of always asking or encouraging your customers to pass referrals.
There are three types of referral programmes:
1. Non-Incentive – you just ask and there’s no reward offered to the customer.
After every transaction ask your customer, either verbally or in writing, (voucher, written on the bottom of the invoice or email), “thank you for your order and your business. Is there anyone you know who could benefit from the products we’ve provided to you today?” If you’ve given your customer a really great experience, they are normally only too willing to tell others.
2. Incentive Reward Programme – a reward or benefit offered programme.
You offer customers a reward for referring customers to you. You can offer two-way rewards, so that the friend gets an introductory offer and the original customer also gets a reward.
3. Silent Reward Programme – You use the same tactics as a non-incentive programme and use the power of WOW.
The idea is that you don’t tell your customers about any rewards, instead you give them a nice surprise with a gift and make it as personal as possible.
Which one would best suit your business?
A word of warning: be very careful if you offer discounts on your core products as a reward for referrals. This potentially de-values your product and says “hey, we’ve got lots of profit in this product.” The better way is to offer discounts on up-sell products as this exposes your customers into enjoying enhanced products they might not have used before.
My preference is always option three.
If you work Business-To-Business, why not try to find referrals for your customers as a thank you? Send out an email to your customers: “We really appreciate your business and we’d like to help you, who would be your ideal referral?” Next, actively look through your customer list and see if you can do some matchmaking.
For more ideas for Sales & Customer Maximisation Strategies www.betterneverstops.global/free-business-tools/
