5 Ways To Make Your Business Easier To Recommend
This post is part of Make A Referral Week - an innovative project from John Jantsch at Duct Tape Marketing to generate 1000 referred leads to 1000 deserving small businesses.
If I were to ask you what the secret was to getting someone to recommend and refer your business, what would you say? Perhaps you might focus on the experience that you provide. Or you might believe that this is a behaviour that you should focus on illiciting from only your best customers. Now what if I told you that the single biggest reason someone chooses whether or not to refer your business has very little to do with their experience with you? That seems counter intuitive. Yet if this were false, then everyone who had a positive experience would share it with someone else. And everyone who had a negative one would do the same.
The point is, people don’t inherently share positive or negative experiences – they need an incentive to do it. The main problem is that anger or frustration IS an incentive. That’s why you hear the often repeated adage that it is much easier to get a customer to post a negative review than it is to post a positive one. Satisfaction, apparently, is not as powerful of a motivator as dissatisfaction. Yet despite this behaviour, there are ways to stack the odds in your favor. You probably already know that online opinions make a difference for your business. So the question you need to ask yourself (especially for Referral Week) is how you can make YOUR business easier for someone to share with a friend, family member or colleague. In other words, you need to be easier to recommend!Here are 5 tips you should consider to help you achieve that:
- Ask at the right moment. There is one moment when your customer is likely to be happiest of all, and that is the moment right after they buy something. The decision has been made, and anticipation is likely to follow. Why not ask them to share their experience with a friend right in that moment? Use a post-purchase survey online or encourage your customer to write a review or even take some extra business cards with them as they walk out of your retail location. The more you can do to get someone to recommend your business right after purchase, the more referrals you can generate.
- Create different levels. It is tempting to think of recommendations and referrals in strict terms. Say online review, and your mind probably goes straight to the sort of review you might find on Amazon or TripAdvisor. In reality, there are many different levels of engagement when it comes to online reviews, and hand written experiences are the most extreme. A much simpler style is what you may have seen on Facebook … the simple thumbs up or thumbs down. Star ratings are another easy method. The lesson is simple … to create more likely situations where people will share their opinion, try to accommodate for different levels of effort and complexity.
- Let them save your details. The magnet for your fridge that your real estate agent always gives you is the prime example of this idea. The opposing idea to #1, the philosophy behind letting your customers save your details easily is that you want to be there in the moment when they do get asked by someone to refer a business or service. Aside from fridge magnets, for the growing digital savvy customer, another way you may be able to stand out is to always include important keywords in your email communications (and always send email receipts). Then your customer can search their email account and even if they don’t remember your business name or have your card handy, you’re just a simple email search away.
- Have a personality. The basic fact is that people don’t generally remember businesses, they remember other people. For this reason, having a personality is of paramount importance. When you can foster a personal connections with your business, you give them a reason to remember and recommend you to others. This is the power of word of mouth referrals, that we will remember working with someone who we respected and will be more likely to actively recommend that person and their business in any relevant situation.
- Admit failure. This last tip will seem like an odd addition to the list. After all, we are generally taught to hide (or at least never admit) our failures for fear that it may make us or our businesses appear vulnerable. The surprising fact is that admitting a mistake can be one of the unintentionally best ways to humanize your business. We all make mistakes, but how you deal with them is the real question. Nothing can endear your business more to a customer than making a mistake an going overboard to correct it (and not making the same mistake again, of course). So the next time you or one of your employees makes a mistake, own up to it and actively fix it. You may find that in the process you converted an unhappy customer into a brand evangelist for life.
Your observations are right on! We have become so accustomed to instant online communications, we often forget about the "personal" touch. I really believe your ideas are all tied to an effective marketing strategy. Some similar ideas on Marketing Balance at: http://www.stellarpointgroup.com/effective-marketing.html
In my experience, selling a product without a personal connection is much easier than selling a service. Very few people - even with the internet - will buy a service without some "personal" connection. Thanks Again
Posted by: PaMarketing | Thursday, March 11, 2010 at 03:08 PM
Hey, Great post!
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Posted by: Michael Thomas | Friday, March 12, 2010 at 11:30 AM
Great list, I liked you approach, specificaly the last point about admiting failures. I think that honesty and transparency could make a great difference!
You can increase your referrals from gaining reputation on Q&A's as well. Startups.com is doing it great these days!
Posted by: Tim Tasker | Friday, March 12, 2010 at 04:26 PM
Thank you for giving such a nice tips,I need to always keep on my mind those category in order to become good in business and how will I interact to people that surrounds me and satisfy them with the things I recommend.
Posted by: accountants in worcester | Monday, March 15, 2010 at 08:08 AM
Nice post. very detailed explanation. most importantly i will follow 5th point strictly as it is really the best ways to humanize your business.
Posted by: Nikhil | Wednesday, March 17, 2010 at 06:17 AM
Nice list! Number four is one of the key ingredients in a strong loyal following!
Posted by: Social Tool | Monday, March 29, 2010 at 05:15 AM
Good post! Interesting points, especially the first one about getting feedback from your customer when he is the happiest.
All of the points mentioned are excellent business strategies.
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Posted by: Jennifer | Saturday, April 03, 2010 at 08:54 AM