6 Ways To Encourage Customers to Generate Referrals for You
Posted in Income Strategies
Most companies get referrals by luck, but a smart business owner will pro-actively contact his happy customers and ask for referrals to family, friends, co-workers and colleagues. Of course, any business can develop a referral program — including consultants and professional practitioners.
How can you contact customers and ask them to recommend others to you?
- Include a special letter in their next shipment thanking them for their business and asking them to pass along an enclosed flyer to friends and family.
- At your website or in your e-newsletter, ask readers to forward the link to friends who can register themselves for your service. Here’s a free tell-a-friend service for your website.
- Provide referral rewards. When a customer refers someone else, both people get a discount on services.
- Send personalized letters to your customers who are professional practitioners asking them to mention you to their client base. Offer to provide a free consultation to any of their clients who respond.
- Credit the customer’s account when they send you new business. Many customers could enjoy free products and services from you when they send you enough new business.
- Promote bring-a-friend offers. When a customer brings a friend or spouse to enjoy services with them, both people get a discount. This strategy is ideal for slow days or months at your personal-services business.
Referrals typically bring in the best customers. Start your program today.
I’d be really interested in hearing how you get referrals… let me know by leaving a reply below.
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Thank Janet, great ideas for my business.
Once I got over the fear of asking for referrals, I found they came in a lot faster than I thought they would.
It’s reassuring to see that my customers are happy
Look forward to the rest of your series.
Terra
Dear Janet,
We want to thank you personally! Over the years, through your books and newsletter tips, you’ve given so many businesses, including ours, practical and easy-to-use tips for serving our visitors and customers in the highest quality ways.
We’ve read your books, e-books and tips, and will continue to refer all business owners to them.
As you always say, “When people love the products and services they use, they are happy to recommend them to a friend.”
Warmly,
Pat Wyman
Founder, CEO, http://www.HowToLearn.com
Hi Janet,
(First of all, I’m Ecuadorian so I apologize if my English isn’t perfect)
One thing that has proven to work for my business is…
We offer aesthetic services, like weight loss therapies, etc. So, once we have a client that has suscribed to one of our programs and that has assisted to his/hers sessions for a week or so, we tell them to fill a coupon with 3 names and phone numbers/emails of 3 people that he/she would like to “give away a week of our services”.
What we do then is we call the referrals and tell them about this “gift” of one week using any of our services. Because we offer a personalized service the first step is a consultation in which we recommend a specific service for the new prospect and then he/she starts with a full week of that recommended service for free. If you look at it this way, we have a whole week to sell our services and once they’ve expermimented the immediate results, in average, almost 2 of the 3 prospects referred become clients.
We make sure that the referrals are qualified by telling our clients that for every referral of theirs who buys one of our programs they’ll get a Free and valuable gift. And when they reffer 3 people that buy they become VIP clients with a ton of benefits for life. So they don’t only give us the names of their friends who most need our services, but also they tell us what their exact needs are and “how” to sell to them, because they want their friends to buy our program, because of the gifts and obviously they want their friends to experiment great results as they are.
Hope this strategy help your readers and thank you for sharing your knowledge…
Carlos Juez
Guayaquil-Ecuador
I would like to learn your ways of getting referrals.
Great tips. I use the second method recommended.
I offer a range of consultations. Some are for fees and some are community service-like Career Guidance for children and adolescents,guidance on securing medical attention from appropriate Hospitals,etc., offered free of charge.When paying clients finish their consultation, I offer to them one of my free services,either for themselves or for their referrals.When the referrals for non-paying consultations complete their work, I offer to them, a discount for paid consultations, citing the offer as due to their referral by my other paying consultation clients.The offer will be valid only for themselves.But once they become paying clients, they are on par with others and get the discounts or free consultations in that section.
We are very fortunate to have a product that’s so amazing that anytime someone gets it and talks about it to their freinds/relatives/whoever it gets the new people interested in it. Since it’s a consumable item it’s easy to share both as the product itself and as the food-creations that result when people use it. It is also fortunate that there are so many interesting facts and ways to use it that nearly anyone can be drawn in by curiosity when customers start talking.
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Hi Janet,
Thanks for sharing your great ideas with respect to referrals
You continue to provide great content
Have a great week
Best regards,
Arthur(Bermuda)
Wonderful article, i leanrt alot ,and i will surely apply what i have leanrt to my business,please Janet keep up the good work,God bless you.
Janet
I Truly benefitted your programs.
thank you
yours, truly
Sani Danladi
Dear Janet,
It has been a wonderful experience signing up with you and than you very much for your messages and your tips you send to me. I wish I was stay in the USA, I would have love to meet you personally and thank you. First I must say that our company offer library services and the best way we have decided to advertise is through word of mouth marketing and referrals. Any member who refers a client to our services and the prospective client becomes our member we will pay the member who referred the client 10% of the membership fee. We also go to the extent where we allow our member to pay installment, which is 50% of the membership fee and balance the other 50% in 3 months. With the 6 ways of generating referrals you sent me, I will work on it and see how it goes. Thanks so much and God bless you. Peace!!!
Yours
Franklin Israel