[eco freindly. peoples champion ron .sherlock]

WORD OF MOUTH REFERRALS are very important.in any marketing success in any small business. but most small businesses are making a mistake by beiieving that those referrals will come automaticaly. its true thwt if you provide good service.and value for money. prices bein competitive moving the goal posts to secure work, you will probably get some word of mouth referrals, but to generate an abundance and highly profitable level of referrals takes more initiative and effort. how often in any year are you asked to reccomend a service . ie a good dentist. a good florist . a good gardner. insurance.etc you may well of used services like these . but are you being asked to recomend them. thats why small carpet cleaning business owners to think referrals will come by chance is a fatal mistake. if you dont ask the customer to refer you every chance you get.whilst working on the job you are doing ask ask ask. you are leaving referals to chance,and that is the most fatal mistake of all

[John_McGavin]

Sherlock - good point

I always hand over 2 or 3 business cards after a job and ask the customer if they are happy to receommend me to friends and family. I also ask if they have a staff room at work where they could put up a flyer.

If youve done a good job and the customer is happy then they will be happy to help.

John

[Doug Holloway]

Sherlock,

Good post , it fits in with the whole ethos of all the work which goes into getting a new customer and then not really maximising that customer.

This is certainly something I've been guilty of.

20 Years ago the Life Assurance iIndustry was based on getting 4/5 referrals per customer,  which you were then expected to contact and then even if they didn't want anything  , you asked them for referrals!

Cheers,

Doug

[Mike Halliday]

 If  a plumber did  a really good job of fitting a shower in my house I would recommend him to my friends, it wouldn’t make any difference to me if when he'd finished he asked me to recommend him.

When people recommend a good tradesmen to a friend they don't do it to help the tradesmen, they do it to help the friend.

To increase the amount of word-of -mouth recommends you should do 2 things;

1) Do quality workmanship (nobody recommends a cowboy)

2) Don’t let the customer forget your name, (people might remember what a great job you did of cleaning thier suite, but can they heck remember your name) you do this with reminder cards and other mailings to keep your name fresh in their minds.

In the USA the give cash incentives to encourage recommends, this might work with commercial accounts but I don't think the British respond well to this. They recommend you because you are good, not to get a £5 backhander.

Mike

Mike

[eco freindly. peoples champion ron .sherlock]

does that mean mike that when out on a social night with freinds, you would start telling them about a great shower fitter, if so how many freinds have you got, please

[Mike Halliday]

you missed the point, of course I would'nt gabs on about what a great plumber he was, but if someone ever mentioned needing a plumber , I would give them his name. even if he had'nt asked me to recommend him.

Mike

[Shaun_Ashmore]

I think the US cleaners like to be 'in your face' so instead of waiting for someone to ask for a good carpet cleaner that anyone knows they want a customer to say,
' Hey Bob a really good thing happened to me today I had a really good experience from Shaun the carpet cleaner he was fantastic you should use him too, thank the Lord for Shaun' (forgetting to tell him that he was going to get a £5 for refering me!)

[Matt Read]

Personally i don't like to push myself on my existing customers too much...2/3 cards handed over at the finish of a job like john and thats as far as i go..if they offer to refer then i smile and say thanx very much but i don't like to be too in the face as i sometimes think it smacks of desperation...If your kitchen sink patter is well honed you'll find most offer anyway and then ure doing them the favour cos they've found a new good tradesman for them and their friends/family to use. sometimes being exclusive (as if !) can be more attractive to punters.

[Dave Parry]

Whilst I agree Matt, it doesn't harm to remind them, that there friends mighn't like to hear about how good you are.

[mark_roberts]

Referrals to me is a bit like the holy grial (sp) ie. I'm constantly trying to get them and maybe reading the American boards too much.

Ive found old people tend to refer you more esp to family.  Gift incentives dont work.  Customers are happy with my service as 50% of my business is repeat but only around 10-15% is referral (by referral I mean you do a job and they tell their friend so I'm not counting estate agent referrals etc).  Havent found a way to dramatically boost this 10% figure.

Am I off the mark or what are you generating in referrals?

Mark

[Dynafoam]

Spot on Mike 

I never ask for referals.

I never advertise.

I only do repeat work and referals.

The two have kept me busy for 39 years.

Q.E.D. 

[Nigel_W]

Same as that John.

Except I'm not that old Only managed to keep busy for 16 years.

I know myself that I won't refer a tradesman to a friend unless I am 110% confident in the work they did for me. I just work very hard to ensure that all my clients have 110% confidence in my ability, honesty and service. They seem to enjoy recommending in these circumstances without being asked. The furthest I would go is to occasionally drop in a reference to the fact that I work solely on recommendation and hope that the penny drops

Nigel

[colin thomas]

i leave a fridge magnet that is a copy of my business card, fairly cheap to buy and they don't get lost in the back of the drawer like cards

[eco freindly. peoples champion ron .sherlock]

well done you are way ahead of other thinkers, and that includes me . i luv the idea

[Fintan_Coll]

The thing to ask oneself about repeat customers is this. How did they become customers the very first time? Obviously from a referral or else they saw your advertisement somewhere, maybe the side of your van, yellow pages, flyer or something else. The point is without some form of advertising you would not have got them as first time customers originally.

[eco freindly. peoples champion ron .sherlock]

correct, but word of mouth referals really mean that a customer previosly has had your service and liked it. if they have not had service and recomend you and you are sXXX they wont have many freinds. it really comes down to that very old question chicken or egg. what comes first. anew customer is the start of a beutifull freindship nurture love and reap rewards love sherlock

[Dynafoam]

Sherlock,

Clearly the first customers need to be enticed  into that status by some means.

I advertised to get my first ten customers, then stopped. All subsequent new customers have stemmed from nine of those original ten. (One went back home to Shrilanka(sp) - how selfish  )

[ABLECLEAN]

I tend to find my customers ask me for cards and I always remind them I have half a page full colour in the Yellow pages and show it to them.

[eco freindly. peoples champion ron .sherlock]

ive got to say that is what everbody does, card, what do you with them, when you want to find a card were is it. as a promotional tool it sucks, sure if somebody keeps them and wait for someone toask them about carpet cleaners, dont hold your breath. ask the customer whilst you are there, doing the job a couple of questions, have they local family,if answer yes, say mrs i need some extra work perhaps if you give them a call whilst im here and see if they would like some work and they yes ill give you a good discoun on the work im doing fo you. you will be amazed how many will phoe there daughters, sons, sisters  etc dont ask dont get, dont wait

[Ian Gourlay]

Has anyone tried giving a customer a form where they sit down and tell you what they thought of your cleaning job.

and then there is a section telling them how expensive it is to find customers

and you will give them a pound

for everyone they refer to you who becomes a customer.

I was told to leave a stamp addressed env for this to be posted back but I believe others get customer to fill it in while loading up.

What happens next?