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"Help Your Happy Customers Refer Others to You"

© Chris McClean

The least expensive (free!) and most satisfying way for business owners and managers to grow their businesses is through third party endorsements -- word of mouth referrals from happy customers -- yet few businesses help make those referrals easy to make.

Customers are most inspired to tell others when your service exceeded their expectations in at least one of five ways: you provided your product or service in ways that were faster, less expensive, more convenient or fun, or with some added value benefit that your competition doesn't offer. You're sure to stand out from any competition when you are the first business of your kind to provide some of these points of difference. Competitors who institute your "extras" will be copycats, playing catch up to you.

As to the first two benefits, you can inspire customers to refer their friends and colleagues to your business because they can gain "bragging rights" for showing others how to save time and money by purchasing a product -- yours -- online.

Here are three ways to encourage online referrals to your business.

1) "Do it yourself" 2) " Recommend-It.com" 3) "Automatic Response"

1) To do it yourself all you need is a webpage with a form and a warm request for their referral, perhaps thanking them for their business and asking for their further support. Use the form to get the necessary information to both send a gift of appreciation (coupon, special added service, electronic postcard etc.) to your customer who is making the referral, and the right questions (beyond basic contact information) so that your first communication to your prospect is filled with some specific information, where possible, about how your service can help them. Be sure to describe on the referring page how you will be contacting the prospect so customers are comfortable enough to fill out the page

After customers fill out the form on this webpage, they can press "SUBMIT." The information will go directly to your e-mail mailbox -- other mailbox that you designate. You may choose to e-mail, mail and/or fax your offer to the prospective customer, depending on the best approach for your kind of product. For example, if you are selling a product that can be credibly viewed on your web page, you might send an e-mail, inviting the prospect to visit that page. If your service or product is best-experienced in-person, say a restaurant, you might send an email and an invitational postcard.