[Les]

During my days in the motor trade a sister dealership in our group offered £250  for each reccomendation.

The problem was that their range of cars were very unreliable and unprofitable which led to a poor level of customer service and numerous dissatisfied customers.

Ours on the other hand were incredibly reliable and very profitable which allowed us to offer our customers a whole range of services that benefited them. nothing was too much trouble and because my staff were well paid, motivated and happy with our product, they in turn were pleasant to our customers, happy and helpful.

For these reasons we had the best customer retention in our group, the second highest profitability, the best staff retention, the lowest number of complaints and the highest number of refferals.

Nothing needs to change just because I'm now in the cleaning industry.

Les 

[mitch2810]

Shaun
Clinton this could cause all sorts of problems, especially when the husband comes home and finds that the local carpet cleaner has been sending his missus flowers.

Do you give a voucher nowadays

I never went down that road but i know someone that even sent a small bunch of flowers to the housewife after a decent paying job :

[robert meldrum]

Just had a brainwave........................encapsulate a fiver, with magnetised backing, for their fridge, they will never forget you, especially if your contact details are included.

r m

[suffolkclean]

I'm doing recommend a family or friends and receive a £10 M&S Voucher. It's worth it I think and it encourages people to recommend you if they know their going to get something out of it. You have more chance of getting recommendations if they know they will get something in return.

[Jim Gibbard]

The problem with offering money is that you look like a salesman or a desperate.

I used to offer M&S vouchers but I got people saying that they had recommended me but not filled in the card I gave them, how could you say no?

I think the best way forward is to build relationships by offering FREE SEX no I mean giving away spotting bottles.

Shaun

Shaun,
I have seen that spotting bottles idea before on the "Cleansmart" website.  If you have not seen it, check it out, they have some very good marketing ideas that they give away for free, well, they used to, don't know if that is still the case.  I have copies of them if you can't get them.

Jim G

[robert meldrum]

A fair number of suppliers offer " give away, or retail " spotters, some even offer to keep then filled  for life.

Another good suggestion "from J P" was sticky labels placed on customers vacuum cleaner,

[Jim Gibbard]

Just checked out the Cleansmart website.  They offer a free newsletter for anyone who signs up for it, don't think there are any strings attached - like having to buy stuff.

http://www.cleansmartsupplies.co.uk/acatalog/FREE_Carpet_Cleaning_Newsletter.html

Jim G

[clinton]

Mitch

  A hard one to explain to your hubby with the flowers.

It was a c cleaner not far from me who used to send the flowers to the clients :

I must be a skinflint as never given my clients any recom incentives

[Brendan B]

What about if your customer recommends say 3 or 4 people and they use your service (to a min value maybe) then there next clean would be half price (or similar)?

I personally dont think gifts or 10% gets your customers attendsion, I would say they would be far more inclined to recommend people if there was real value in it for them, what do you think?

[Mike Osbourne]

Clinton is the Yorkshire?

[Dave_Lee]

Incentives - No! A good customer might be offended and think less of you if you appear to be grasping. The best way is to impress not only the customer but her friends when they next visit and think she's got new carpets.
Dave.

[Shaun_Ashmore]

Don't agree Dave I think they need a push and a spotting bottle is a good business card as they keep them under the sink for years.

Shaun

[Jim Gibbard]

Incentives - No! A good customer might be offended and think less of you if you appear to be grasping. The best way is to impress not only the customer but her friends when they next visit and think she's got new carpets.
Dave.

Dave,
Have you actually ever tried it.  We all like to think that the lovely clean carpets will be the topic of conversation when their friends visit and the host is freely handing out your business cards or leaflets with the Dundee cake, biscuits and  tea.  It may happen 5% of the time but I am willing to bet that 95% of the time, you won't even get a mention, it's old hat, they have moved on.  A week later, they can not even remember what a bad state their carpet was in.  Motivation is a prime mover.

Jim G

[clinton]

Mike

 

Yorkshire

Cheers clinton

[spindle]

i do a good job

[Barry Livingstone]

I laugh at this place you get GOOD advise from someone that doing it for real and you say no thats not the way to go.....Hes the one with the big new TM and van been doing it for years and knows how to eran BIG money carpet cleaning....

Its no wonder half of you spend half your day in this site, He might be on here every nite but i bet hes made 200+ before he gets in tho and you lot are moaning about being quiet.... get a grip or go get a job and stop moaning.......

Its no wonder capet cleaning isnt uniform all over the country and standards are all over the place...

[Doctor Carpet (Ret'd)]

As ever there is always more than one way of achieving the same thing.

Personally I'm with Dave on this one although I accept there are other methods which will work. Mine seems to work for me though.