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Sales & Marketing

5 Ways to Drive Customer Referrals

Customer ReferralsPeople love to talk about the excellent service they receive, the customer-only discounts they get, and businesses who offer something through a loyalty program.

All you have to do is give them a reason to share and you do this by treating them special.  Here are five easy ideas.

1. Customer Specific Emails

Segment your email list to a very specific group that you believe could help you get referrals. Send them messages about specific services and make it as personalized to them as possible. Your current customers presumably like your company and its service, so this new or add-on service will be valuable to them. Ask them to share the information with others.

2. Customer-Only Facebook Page

Create a page or group on Facebook that’s just for your customers. A specialized page or group gives them the chance to discuss your business, its services and related topics. You also have an opportunity to offer content specially created for them, such as seasonal add-on services with a customer discount.

Get the buzz going by talking about a new offer targeted at a specific issue or location. These people can help you promote your new offer. For example, if you’re expanding into a new city, you can share this information with this group and tell them you are now taking appointments – offer a discount in exchange for the referrals they send who live in this city. Be sure to tell them exactly what to do to get the discount.

3. Customer Exclusive Offers

Create offers that are only for your loyal customers. This is a way to reward their loyalty, and rewards go a long way in getting you referrals. Try to think of a product, deal or enhancement on an existing service that would be particularly useful for your current customers. Setting up an offer that ties into a holiday or season is an effective way to get more responses, such as:

  • One-off Spring Cleaning Add-ons
  • Special Services for the summer months
  • Fall Holiday Add-ons

4. Answer Customer Questions

Take advantage of all of your opportunities for communication with your customers and give them a forum for asking questions. You can do this anywhere you currently communicate with them online such as your blog, your site, social media, etc. You can also answer their questions through eMail and videos. You can take these specific questions and turn them into content you can publish separately.

5. Interview Customers about Their Experiences

Let your customers speak for themselves. Interview your customers about their experiences using your services. Get them to talk about how your services have helped them. Focus on how you’ve solved their specific problems.

Your customers aren’t the only way to get referrals. Take advantage of the opportunity you have to network with specific businesses in your city. I show you how to find businesses willing to work with you, how to select the best one(s) and how to get them to refer your business to their customers. Click Here to learn more.

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By Anne-Marie

I'm Anne-Marie, the House Cleaning Pro. When I planned to build a house cleaning business, I knew I didn't want to be stuck doing all the work myself. I had much bigger plans, like 1) Building up the business to compete with the franchises in my city 2) Training employees to do the dirty work and 3) Having the ability to sell the business when the time was right. Discover how you can achieve your goals when you start a house cleaning business for maximum profits!

2 replies on “5 Ways to Drive Customer Referrals”

This question is not really pertinent to customer referrals, but it could be if you have grown a customer referral network. This could then be used to sell your customer list because these are businesses that might have a referral for you.

Recently, I wrote a blog post on creating an exit strategy. Basically, you need to have a profitable business that a buyer can verify. They’ll want to see your invoices going back over a one or two year period. They’ll also want to look at your working schedule and your client list to identify the number of clients you service and the frequency of that service. If you have employees, they will want to see your employee handbooks because this is the basis of them acquiring your business which allows them to basically consider it a turnkey operation.

If you don’t have a professional business setup, you could sell your client list to another cleaning business. This allows them to take your clients and add them to their schedule.

What is a buyer willing to pay? Basically whatever they can get you to agree to. You can expect them to average your earning over a number of years and make an offer based on that, which could be one year’s revenue or if you only show profits for months, it would be based on that.

For more information on selling a business, this video is a good overview of the entire process:
https://www.zerolimitsventures.com/x/cadredc/

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