A Guide to Attracting More Customers

You spend money on marketing and advertising. You provide a product or service that people need. Now you just want to maximize the money you invest in your marketing and advertising and get your customer acquisition costs down. You need referrals! How do you get more referrals?

Why Referrals are Important

Referrals are a great way to grow your customer base. When you’re looking for a contractor for your house, you’re probably going to ask a friend for a referral. In my business when I am looking for some contract work, I’ll ask other business owners who they use for specific products, and ask if they recommend that company. We ask other people for referrals because we trust our friends and believe that we’ll have the same experience that they have.

There is a vast online market for referrals or reviews. When you are thinking about purchasing a product, you probably go to some online source to find reviews (another form of a referral). You might look at Yelp, Google reviews, or check the reviews on Amazon.
It is probably obvious that you want to make sure that as a business, you always have good reviews and happy customers providing reviews. With so many ways for future customers to find out about your company, you must understand the importance of receiving strong referrals, online or in person, to help your business grow.

Traditional Methods…

“Please take some of my business cards and hand them out.”

“If you refer a friend we’ll give you a discount on your next purchase.”

Have you said or heard lines like these before? Sure, you have. This is a traditional way of getting referrals, by asking. Now, we see emails requesting a review of a product we just bought. Thank you for purchasing my product or service, please fill out this review. This is just a different way of asking people to refer business to you.

The trouble with these traditional methods of asking for referrals is they are just not that effective. Your business cards get thrown on a pile of cards from every other company that hoped to get referrals. The email you sent for a review might have a 20% open rate if you’re lucky. Asking for a referral rarely compels someone to take action on your behalf.

Be Consistent. Be Amazing.

The key is to give your customers an amazing experience every time they do business with you. Be creative as you think of ways to exceed their expectations. They won’t be able to resist telling everyone they meet how awesome you are! Automatic referrals will bring new clients in, and previous customers will beam with pride for sending new business your way! It’s a win-win-win!

This Week’s Challenge

This week take some time to have a closer look at the experience you provide your customers. Is it consistent? Is it amazing? The challenge is to find ways to provide an outstanding experience for customers…every time! Do this consistently over a sustained period of time, and you’ll see your referrals increase!

Do you want help creating a consistently positive experience for your customers?

Click the here to find a Shaffer Solution for you!

Shaffer Ingenuity can help you find what really drives you and provide you the tools to achieve those goals!

Quote of the week

 “Customer satisfaction is worthless. Customer loyalty is priceless.”

Jeffrey Gitomer