Referrals are the strongest predictor of customer loyalty and a positive experience with your business. When customers love your business, they want to tell their friends about it, and a word-of-mouth referral is the ideal way to do that. In fact, a recent survey found that 77% of consumers trust recommendations from friends and family above all other marketing channels.
With a great deal of trust being placed in referrals, businesses that understand how to get more of them see significant benefits. They have access to low-cost traffic (people you know won’t cost you much), as well as an endless supply of potential customers who have already expressed interest in your product or service.
But let’s face it: Businesses will always struggle with getting more referrals unless they up their game when it comes to providing customers with an unforgettable experience. In this blog post, we’ll show you how exactly you can do that by implementing these 6 tactics .
Make it easy for customers to give you referrals
When customers have used your product or service and loved it — they will want to tell their friends about it. But when they don’t know how or where to start, they might not go through with it. In order to make it as easy as possible for your customers to recommend you to their friends, you must first enable them to do so online.
Most major social media platforms, such as Facebook and Instagram, have referral settings. If your business has a website, you can also enable customers to send referral requests through a “Send a friend” button.
Send a reminder after a customer experiences your product
When you’ve served a customer, they have a really great experience with you, and they’re still in the “honeymoon” phase of their relationship with your business. This is a great time to ask them to share the love.
A great way to do this is after you’ve delivered their product or service. Send them a quick email or text message asking them to refer your business to their friends. Be sure to include a link to the page where they can share their recommendation.
Leverage existing customers to ask for referrals
Find out which of your loyal customers know other potential customers who could benefit from your products or services. Ask them to send a quick email to their friends to let them know you exist.
You can do this by adding a referral prompt on your customer service emails, or even on the receipts that you give out.
Offer a benefit to customers who refer others
Your customers, especially the ones who are the most passionate about your brand, have a lot of influence with their peers. One way to encourage them to exert that influence is to offer them a reward for every friend they refer. You can decide exactly what and how much you’re willing to pay out per person.
Once you’ve chosen a reward, make it easy for your customers to input the information of their friends on your referral page.
Ask for referrals at the point of sale
When people are in the midst of checking out, they’re very close to making a decision on whether to buy from your company or not. At this point, they’ve already seen the value in your offering, but they’re still on the fence. There’s no better time to involve your customers in the referral process than at this point.
Ask them if they know anyone who could benefit from your product or service. If they say yes, proceed with asking them to write down the name of their friend and their email address on a slip of paper, and then give it to you.
Send a follow-up email 10 days later
This is a great way to follow up with customers who haven’t yet sent you a referral. Send them an email 10 days after their purchase, and ask if they’ve sent any referrals your way. If they haven’t, encourage them to get on it. If they have, ask them if they can send the referral link to the email address where they sent it so you can track it.
Bottom line
Referrals are the strongest predictor of customer loyalty and an experience. When customers love your business, they want to tell their friends about it. A word-of-mouth referral is an ideal way to do that, but you must make it easy for customers to do so.
To make it easy for customers to give you referrals, send a reminder after a customer experiences your product, leverage existing customers to ask for referrals, offer a benefit to customers who refer others, ask for referrals at the point of sale, and send a follow-up email 10 days later, you’ll see significant growth in the number of referral customers coming your way.
Rewarding customers for referrals is a fantastic way to grow your business
Contact us today to learn what AIR MILES can do for your business.
Helpful Links
How to Become an AIR MILES Partner Guide
Loyalty Program – The New Business Imperative
Existing AIR MILES Incentives Partners
Examples of Partner Results