According to a 2015 Nielson survey, 83% of people rely on the opinions of family and friends to make their purchasing decisions. Thus, word-of-mouth is just as important in your marketing efforts as SEO, social media marketing and email. How does one learn how to get more referral business? Lucky for you, we’ve got a guide right here.
- Get referral ready: Prepare to solicit and be able to handle referrals. Ideally, your business should do things to make itself referral ready by offering clients incentives, identifying referral prospects and by keeping in touch with clients even after you have met their needs. You can gauge who might be a prospective referral by creating a survey or poll that clients can take once you have served them. In this way, you will gain more listing leads.
- Exceed expectations: Your business should strive to go above and beyond for its customers. By doing so, customers will be more likely to share the positive experience they had with you via social media, blogs, etc. This can not only enhance your reputation, it can also be an inexpensive and effective means of advertising.
- Be tactful when soliciting referrals: We know it can be a bit difficult to ask customers for referrals outright. However, as long as your timing is just right and you are polite and courteous with your ask most customers will not have a problem giving you a referral. Finally, don’t forget to thank customers who do give you a referral.
- Don’t accept just any referral: Quality matters more than quantity when it comes to referrals. Be sure that the clients you do solicit for referrals will make high quality, complimentary comments about your services.
- Offer incentives: Don’t think of it as a bribe. Think of it as sweetening the pot for someone who you have helped with your services. The incentive you do offer does not have to be cash although that is always a nice plus for most people. The reward you offer can be as simple as an inexpensive Starbucks or Amazon gift card. After all, many people desire to know how they can be benefited once they have helped others achieve their goals.
As we said before, referrals are all about putting your clients out there as salespeople for your company. You can spread the word about your company through someone who you have given superior service to and save money at the same time. As one of the top real estate lead generation companies on the Internet we can save you time and money by supplying you with quality probate leads and invaluable knowledge about the probate process.
