The Importance of Customer Referrals
When you want to find a new place to eat lunch, figure out where your next vacation is, or try a new app, you can scour millions of reviews, search on Google, or browse social media. But, even with 24/7 access to anything digital, there is still one thing that trumps them all: customer referrals.
Think about your own behavior: You’re much more likely to make a purchase if someone you trust shares their positive experience. And the good news? Referrals are effective anytime, anywhere, and in any industry.
Here are three benefits of customer referrals:
- They lead to more trust: You don’t have to spend as much time convincing new customers that you’re trustworthy. With referrals, you are essentially creating a large group of people who can vouch for you, removing the pressure. But, this doesn’t mean you can be lazy with referred customers. They will come into the relationship with a positive mindset, but you still need to prove that you deserve that relationship.
- They’re free!: Unlike traditional acquisition methods, like paid ads or events, referrals come at no cost. You do have to put time and energy into building a referral program, but once you have the activities in place, your existing customers will (hopefully!) be acquiring customers on your behalf.
- They create a flywheel effect: Customer referrals can have a compounding effect. If one customer refers five of her friends and each one of those friends refer five more of their own friends, you’ve greatly increased the number of referrals with very little work required.
The Value of Staying Connected
When building a referral program, it’s not enough to simply build a landing page or set up an automated email. You also need to think about who to ask, how to ask for referrals, and when to ask for them.
The secret is to stay truly connected to your customers. Many small business owners like to think they understand their customer base, but it’s one thing to read reviews and talk to your support team, and another thing entirely to immerse yourself in the minutiae, actually speaking to customers and diving into the data.
How does this all relate to customer referrals? The more you know, the personalized your communication can be. For example, perhaps you learn that customers are the most active in your app at a certain time of the year or at a set cadence. You could time your referral request when you know that customers are using, and enjoying, your offering.
Or, you could use data to identify your VIP customers. You could identify the customers who engage the most with your marketing materials, attend the most events, or make the most repeat purchases. These customers would make great candidates to spread the word about your business.
And lastly, simply talking to customers can make a difference. Perhaps you speak to an unhappy customers and take the time to make it right. Once you’ve built this personal relationship and have proven to the customer that you’re willing to make her happy, you could close with something like, “I hope I’ve made things right for you. If you are happy with your experience with [XYZ company], we always welcome referrals from great customers like you.”
How Keap Can Help
Staying connected is easier said than done. You could spend hours manually analyzing data in Excel or remembering to follow up with certain customers.
Or, you could use client management, appointment, and invoicing/payment software like Keap. Keap lets you intelligently get daily work done, combining all your essentials tools into one app and removing friction from your customer interactions. It eliminates repetitive tasks, like copying and pasting the same follow-up email, to save you time and alleviate stress.
Here are three ways Keap can help you stay connected:
- Keep client and customer information organized: No more digging in your inbox for specific information. A client management system collects data about your customers and organizes everything in one place. You can easily upload, store, and manage detailed individual records that include name, address, email, type of customer, purchase history, and more.
- Automatically send out referral requests: It’s not scalable or realistic to solely rely on your memory to send referral requests. Instead, build automated emails that are sent after you complete a job or deliver a service. For example, this email could get triggered X days after the client pays his or her invoice.
- Always know when to follow up: One of the biggest mistakes you can make is getting a referral and not following up. With Keap, you can create triggers that automatically follow up with referrals within a certain amount of time, helping you stay top of mind.
Want to see how Keap can help you stay connected? Start your free trial today. No credit card required.
