Referral Marketing has always been directly proportional to increase in sales of products and services of a brand/company as it whispers about its quality, trustworthiness, and caliber into distinct ears.
Every company craves for referral business as it helps get genuine and qualified prospects and cuts the sales cycle to a shorter time frame. Yet, many professionals seem to be unaware as to how to go about creating sales referrals. Either, as sellers, you feel awkward asking for referrals and don’t want to seem desperate for work or appear too salesy or you doubt your own value delivery process.

Create A Customer Referral Program That Works

Do you consider asking for referrals makes you a supplicant? If yes, you must be uncomfortable with this because once, you don’t get a referral; you feel rejected and hence, cross out any such options coming from this route.
So, before getting started with this productive mission to create a successful customer referral program, ensure that:

You are referable

Trust and credibility are the two most important aspects of referral selling. Your clients don’t want to spoil their relationship with their close acquaintances because of you. Focus on delighting your customers and serve them well, as it’s a key to becoming referable.

Focusing on the right group of clients and identify the referrers

Once you are clear of your potential customer’s list, you can leverage your network and existing clients to get connected with them. As you will get referred, only if they know the individual you want to get connected with well, you can benefit from the respect the prospect has for your referrer.

As a sales person you don’t want to the pipeline to dry up and left wondering how you will achieve your targets?

10 Tips To Build A Healthy Customer Referral Pipeline

Generating consistent referrals is not everyone’s cup of tea but we have made an effort to accumulate together 10 intriguing and productive ways, following which one can easily have a sip from this vital cup of tea that will certainly boost up the energy of the entire business!
1. Let Your Work Make Your Clients Speak For You: Client satisfaction is the shortest route that a company may take in order to gain qualified referrals. A happy client will always go out and speak about you among his friends, colleagues, and family, indirectly creating positive referrals for you.

2. Educate Your Clients & Be In Their Radar: Your customers are already preoccupied and giving you a referral is not their top priority, Often you may be doing a point work for the client and they are not well-informed about the activities that going on in your company. By connecting with them at regular intervals, the chances are they would refer your name whenever the acquaintance would need help in a similar stream.

3. Highlight Your Company’s Uniqueness: Be it in your work, the banner or your conversation with the client, one should definitely know that what is the special thing about you which they can later speak about amidst their well-knowns!

4. Utilize the Agreement: An agreement is a document which consists of all the terms and conditions related to payments, duration, etc. Adding a clause related to referrals can be an additive factor. For instance: The clause may ask the client to supply a referral when the project is on the verge of completion.

5. Be Aware Of When Should You Ask For A Referral: This is a key point to be kept in mind for enhancing the no. of referrals coming your way as the right time of asking for them holds a lot of positive responses. Requesting a referral on completion of your project is certainly a good option as the client would then be aware of your timely deliveries and other positive attributes.

6. Build A Referral Mindset: Remember the give and take policy? Help your contacts and customers grow their businesses by leveraging your network, and they will feel galvanized to return the favor.

7. Courtesy Of Your Referral Sources: Thanking and appreciating the efforts of your referral sources will always keep them going in the same direction with great enthusiasm. A hand-written note or a direct phone call will do wonders!

8. Pay Per Referral Offer: Well, nothing is more tempting than getting a reward and so you can gain some referrals too by rewarding your resources for every referral they bring to you. Believe me! This always works.

9. Use LinkedIn As A Boon: LinkedIn has become an important channel for all business people today and so using it for creating link ups and referrals is not at all going to be a fail.

10. Consider Customers As Your Partner: Make them feel like one and they will start behaving like one! Your continuous efforts of making them feel like an inevitable part of your company will subsequently result in their attachment with your company on emotional grounds, hence giving them a feel like they are referring their own company.
Now that you have all the indispensable tips up your sleeves, don’t step back from sowing these seeds now to reap productive outcomes in the long – run!
Note: If your clients are satisfied with your value-delivery system, they will automatically refer you often even without you asking for it. Therefore, you need to concentrate on creating a more effective system that will add value and deliver satisfaction, instead of focussing on just getting referrals.

Innovatus Marketers Touchpoint LLP is a customer experience, marketing, service design, design thinking and business innovation consulting firm, based in India. We offer go-to-market and digital strategy consulting and help our clients rethink and redesign customer and employee value in the digital era. We offer design thinking workshops and consulting, tailored to enable, accelarete or transform your business. We are laser-focused on the problem at hand and your opportunity space, and optimize process to make design thinking and service design principles accessible to your employees who’ve never done it before or stuck-up, and provide “just adequate” theory to help you get moving and achieve outcomes.

You may reach out to Vidya Priya Rao @ +918080015500 or email @ vidyapriya.rao@marketerstouchpoint.com

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