Customer Service Tips That Generate Referrals
How do you define good customer service? Does that simply mean the satisfactory marketing and sale of a product or service to a customer or does it mean something else? Is providing good customer service, good enough?
In these days of below average customer service, you may think providing good service will set you apart from the pack. Well, I am here to tell you that nothing less than exemplary service will help you succeed. By incorporating the “wow” factor into every successful sale, you will achieve greater profits and better customer satisfaction.
To achieve the “wow” factor, you must be honest, knowledgeable, friendly, professional and deliver on your promises. Do not over promise, but do not under promise either.
In addition, you must be able to provide a high level of service to everyone who comes in contact with your business. If you do, you’ll also get more referrals from your satisfied clients.
“Wow” everyone who comes into contact with you and your business. You want people to be blown away by the extraordinary level of service you deliver to your clients. Demonstrate your exceptional level of customer service by showing your generosity through gift giving. Your goal should be to deliver such a high level of service that your clients can’t wait to tell their family members, friends and co-workers about your company.
Everyone who comes into contact with your business is a potential client or referrer. Reward those who refer people to you by offering them a gift. Send gifts to all business associates in order to gain favor. This is a great way to build relationships with the people you rely on to do business. Look for a reason to send these people a thank you card along with a gift.
So, what types of gifts should you send? I’ll leave that up to your imagination, but here are some ideas to help you get started:
Movie passes
Starbucks cards
Flowers, houseplants
A ticket for a free car wash
Gift candles
Favorite recipes
Gourmet chocolates or gourmet popcorn
Successful sales people always make sure their faithful referrers are regularly and consistently rewarded. Set aside the best rewards for your top referrers. This may include:
Dinner for two at a fancy restaurant
Tickets to the opera or to a rock concert
A gift card
High end fruit or gift basket
Potted plant or flower arrangement
A personally inscribed pen
Yes, when it comes to gift giving the sky is the limit. The more personal the gift, the more likely it will be remembered and it will serve as a thoughtful reminder to your best referrers the next time someone is in need of your exemplary services.
For more referral generating customer service tips, visit our article directory:
http://Mortgage-Training.Mortgage-Leads-Generator.com
Please feel free to reprint this article as long as the resource box is left intact and all links are hyperlinked.
Hartley Pinn has recently created the Mortgage Leads Generator Training Course to teach people how to make over $50,000 a month working part-time (10 to 15 hrs per week) as a mortgage loan officer.
Tags: customer service, Customer service tips, referral marketingPublished by: admin on November 22nd, 2008 | Filed under referral | Comment now »
Referral Business 3 Steps to Generating Unlimited Referrals
Of course, every sales person knows referral business is vitally important. But how do you generate enough referrals to triple your sales and commissions? That’s easy, keep reading and I will share three sure fire steps to creating massive referrals for your business:
Step#1: Wow your clients
The first step to generating referral business is to go out of your way to demonstrate a high level of service to EVERYONE who comes in contact with your business - not just clients.
Everyone who comes in contact with your business is a potential customer or referral source. As a mortgage lender, I’ve had service people come into my office, see how we do business, and ask about refinancing.
But how do you “wow” your clients and others to generate referral business?
Basically, you will need to be honest, knowledgeable, friendly, professional, and deliver on your promises.
Exceed their expectations. Set yourself up to succeed. If you think a task will be completed on Wednesday, tell your client it will completed on Friday. Then, when you call them on Wednesday to report that the task has been completed you’ll look like a superstar because you exceeded their expectation. In short, deliver ahead of schedule.
Communicate proactively. Find out why your clients call and stop them from calling by answering all questions ahead of time. In the mortgage business, I found that clients and everyone else involved in the transaction would call for status updates. So I put a system in place to communicate updates to everyone automatically. Now, my phone doesn’t ring because clients get regular scheduled updates.
Give unexpected bonuses. Give your clients some kind of surprise bonus. Give them more than what they expected. Your bonus could relate to your product or it could be in the form of a gift. Here are a few gift giving ideas to help generate referral business:
Before the sale
Try to give your clients something right up front. Try giving clients a $5 gift card before they even agree to do business with you.
During the sales process
Send cookies to both spouses’ work with a thank you note and plenty of your business cards so they can give them to co-workers. This is a excellent technique for creating referral business.
After the transaction is complete
Send flowers to your clients’ home.
Step #2: Collect testimonials
Now that you have wowed your clients, get a testimonial from them.
In fact, it would be a great idea to survey your clients at the beginning, middle and end of the sales process immediately after they have received one of your gifts.
Collect your surveys in writing by using short, quick answer questionnaires - 10 questions or less. Here are sample questions for your questionnaire:
1) Why did you choose to do business with us?
2) Was your transaction closed on time? YES / NO
3) How would you rate our courtesy?
EXCELLENT / GOOD / FAIR / POOR
4) How would you rate our efficiency and speed?
EXCELLENT / GOOD / FAIR / POOR
5) How would you evaluate the competitiveness of the price you received on your product?
EXCELLENT / GOOD / FAIR / POOR
6) Overall, how would you rate the service you received during this transaction?
EXCELLENT / GOOD / FAIR / POOR
7) Have you ever purchased a similar product from a company other than Your Company Name? YES / NO
If you answered YES to question #7, would you say we were:
BETTER / SAME / WORSE
9) Would you recommend us to a friend or relative? YES / NO
These questionnaires will serve as testimonials for the next step in the creation of your referral business.
Step #3: Generate more referral business
Use your client’s testimonial to target everyone in their center of influence. Send your testimonial to prospective clients and referral business partners along with an approach letter.
More on the approach letter in a moment; first, here is a list of potential referral business partners that can be targeted after a mortgage transaction just to give you some ideas:
* HR manager at their work
* Listing real estate agent and that agents entire office
* Selling real estate agents and that agents entire office
* CPA
* Financial planner
* Insurance agent
* The seller of the home on a purchase transaction
* Title Company
* Real estate appraiser
* Neighbors
Now, do you need some ideas for writing your cover letter? To download three approach letter samples visit: www.Mortgage-Leads-Generator.com/a/approachletter.htm
In summary, incorporate these ideas into the way you conduct business and you will automatically deliver such a high level of service that your clients will jump at the chance to tell their family, friends, and co-workers about your service.
Please feel free to reprint this article as long as the resource box is left intact and all links are hyperlinked.
Hartley Pinn has recently created the Mortgage Leads Generator Training Course to teach people how to make over $50,000 a month working part-time (10 to 15 hrs per week) as a mortgage loan officer.
Tags: business referral system, business referrals, referral businessPublished by: admin on November 21st, 2008 | Filed under referral | Comment now »
Walking Talking Advertisements
So you’ve made a sale. Great!
Now what? You’re not just going to sell your new customer a product and let them walk away, are you?
Not when you’re marketing on tight budget! You now have to use the customer in front of you to build your business, and you do that with a successful referral program.
Referrals work. Word of mouth advertising is still the most powerful form of advertising available, and it’s getting ever MORE powerful in 2004. The largest companies in this country have cut their advertising budgets over the last 10 years and directed that money towards generating positive PR and good word of mouth (a.k.a. “buzz”) for their products. (Most marketing people who are paid to buy and sell advertising would rather you didn’t know that, but it’s a verifiable fact).
So how do you build a successful word of mouth program for your business?
Just ask.
Offer your customers a discount on their next purchase if they refer a new customer to you. A lot of companies do this already, but amazingly, not many of them publicize it. If they remember, they mention it to you on your way out the door. Well I say you make damn sure your customer knows before they leave your store or your website that you want their business, and you want them to talk about your product or service to their friends as well.
Think of your local mechanic. They might have mentioned to you at some point that if you refer a friend, they’ll give a small discount next time around. But they could do much better than that, couldn’t they?
If I owned a garage (and believe me I never will because I can barely hold a wrench let alone use one), I’d make sure that after every transaction I told my customers that if they refer a client to me, and that client brings their car in for any kind of repair at all, I’d give them a free lube oil and filter on their next visit. That’s a retail value of about $20. It would cost me about $10. If you were in the auto repair business, wouldn’t you buy a new customer for $10!?! The same logic applies to online sales or any other retail model you can think of.
Just give your customer a reason to make the referral. Deliver good service, charge a fair price, and make it worth their while to send a friend your way. (By the way, the referral program also helps to bring the original customer back in to get their free oil change, so it’s really like getting 2 follow up visits from just one referral.)
What about the plumbing business? Here’s a quiz for you. Name 2 plumbers in your area.
I’ll wait.
Couldn’t do it, could you? Most plumbers are independent businessmen and women. They don’t have big advertising budgets, and they only service a local area. So you can imagine that a plumber, who sees 4 or 5 or maybe 6 clients a day would be well served by offering a referral program. Turn those 6 clients into 12 by having them each refer a friend who has a plumbing problem.
Now you’re saying that this is not possible. You only call a plumber when you need one, so what good is a 10% discount off your next plumbing job? It’s not like the mechanic who does regular maintenance on your car. You might use a plumber once, and then never again. How would a plumber come up with a referral program?
I’m no plumber, but here’s my idea. You refer any client to me who has a job of $100 or more, and I’ll install a brand new kitchen faucet for you at no charge. The faucet won’t cost a plumber much, because he’s got the inside track on deals in the industry. So a nice $80 faucet at the store probably costs him $40. And he can put it in about 15 minutes or less. Now who wouldn’t want a nice new kitchen faucet, installed free! All they have to do is mention you to their friends. If one of them calls, you make $100 less $40 for the faucet, and gain another client for the future. Do that for a few years and watch your business grow exponentially.
In small business you can’t outspend your competition but you can outsell them by employing your own customers as your sales force using a good word of mouth referral program. With almost no upfront cost and a huge potential upside, it’s well worth the time invested in creating a good referral program for your business.
About The Author
Will Dylan is the Author of “Small Business,Big Marketing” a powerful e-book for small businesses available at no charge through his website www.marketingyoursmallbusiness.com. Will also offers affordable news release writing services.
askwill@marketingyoursmallbusiness.com
Tags: marketing, network marketing, referrals, sales, word of mouth