Helpful Referral Strategies for Small Business

If your customer’s loyalty is not first and foremost at your company, that needs to change. Businesses lose profits 70% of the time due mostly to the fact that customers feel that they are being taken for granted. While in the digital age, we tend to rely more heavily on social media, in many instances, this can result in a loss of personalized service that many consumers prefer in their favorite product and service providers.

While the quality of your products and services is very important, customers really want to know that they are making a smart decision in purchasing from you. They want good communication when they need customer service, and they want to feel appreciated. Making sure your customers feel this way will turn them into referrers for your brand.

Referral Strategies

Learning some helpful tips on how to generate referrals can help you to secure a solid customer base for your company.

• Relationships – Like any relationship, it helps to listen to the entire conversation. Both men and women prefer that salespeople hear their concerns. Since women typically make up to 80% of household purchases, take the time to hear them out about what they need the most. Meet those needs.

• Interactivity – Always go out of your way to create interactive dialogues. Invite feedback and don’t cover up the bad reviews, but reply to them, and work out a solution in full view of the positive feedbacks.

• Be Referable – Provide top-notch service and products. If your products or services fail, go out of your way to make sure customer service brings up the rear with impressive solutions.

• Take Care in Negotiations – Always be careful what you negotiate and never risk making promises your businesses products or services may not be able to keep. If someone is looking for more than you offer, ask them how you can serve their needs with what you have to provide.

• Cultivating Compliments – When a consumer gives you a comment or appreciative feedback, take the time to ask them for two referrals. Ask them to introduce you to two people just like themselves who can benefit from what you have to offer.

• Value Reminders – You can help prevent buyer’s remorse by reminding your customers during purchases of the value of your services or products. These ideas can and likely will be carried over to those who are referred to you.

• The Magic Words – Say please and thank you, every chance you get.

• Personal Purchase – Make sure to make personal contact a priority, especially in the case of higher-end purchases. When the price tag goes up, so should your willingness to follow up, send birthday or anniversary cards, or even make direct contact to ask how the consumer is enjoying their purchase. Be certain to forward any negative issues to an interactive customer service department.

Do not make the mistake of assuming your customers are forever. Take the time to remind them of the reasons why it benefits them to purchase your products or services.

Christian Fea is CEO of Synertegic, Inc. A Joint Venture and Referral Marketing firm. He exemplifies how to profit from Joint Venture and Referral relationships by creating profit centers with minimal risk and maximum profitability.

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