Creating Exceptional Referrals
When to ask for a customer referral — and what you should ask.
From: Inc.com
Receiving a high percentage of business from customer and prospect referrals is an enviable characteristic of exceptional sales professionals. Yes, I also included prospect referrals. It is easy to understand how salespeople will get quality referrals from satisfied customers, but let’s also look at how to get referrals from satisfied prospects.One of the most important conversations we can have is the referral conversation, but most salespeople pay little attention to it and miss valuable opportunities. If they do ask for a referral, they most often simply ask for a name. “Do you know anyone else who would be interested in our solution?” or worse, “Do you know anyone else thinking of buying one of these?”.
For the entire article go to Inc.com
Corra wonders if you have the kind of employees who know what to do when a prospective customer tells you they have been referred by someone else. Do they know to ask who sent them? Do they know that this prospective customer should get special courtesy and attention to assure that word of mouth continues to spread.
Word of mouth is a two sided coin. One one side if you do right by your clients, then they recommend you highly. Study after study shows that consumers and clients rely more on personal word of mouth than any other form of communications. They don’t really trust advertising or all that much public relations hype.
On the other side of this coin, if your or your employees screw up, then that story races around like wild fire. As they say, whoever they is, bad news travels fast. Bad news about your business can really hurt your business.
So when you hire, don’t be hasty and make sure you recruit the right people. Run a background check on them that will assist you in assessing their qualities as well as their negative traits. The criminal background search is a must, and the education, credit and Motor Vehicle Driving Records can tell you quite a bit about your candidate. From those you will see a pattern that can explain their personal fiscal responsibility, their substance habits, if any, and of course any crimes they may have committed.
Check them out before your hire.
