I hope you are generating referrals from your clients. If you’re not you should be, as referrals are one of the most effective ways of growing your business. But know that once you have received the referral your job is hardly done. No, I’m not talking about contacting and selling to the referred prospect, but rather keeping your client in the loop.
One of the primary reasons clients are hesitant to give referrals is that they are afraid of being embarrassed in front of a friend, relative, acquaintance or co-worker by you not performing as you should. So, when they do give a referral, they have a vested interest in what’s going on between you and the person to whom they referred you.
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Their interest isn’t in whether or not the prospect purchases, but in how the prospect perceives you and the value being referred by the client.
When a client gives you a referral, you learn a number of things:
1. The client will give referrals. Obviously, you just received one or more.
2. How well the client understands what you do. The quality of the referral will let you know how well your client understands what you do and who is a good referral for you. The better the referral, the more the client understands. The poorer the referral, the more work you must do to educate them for future referrals (and future sales to them for that matter).
3. How much they trust you. Generally, the stronger the trust relationship between the client and the referred prospect, the more the client trusts you.
4. They have more referrals to give. Seldom will a client give you all of the referrals they can make at one time. If a client gives referrals, you can almost bet they have more to give — if you keep earning them.
How do you earn those additional referrals?
1. By giving your client the assurance that you’re trustworthy with referrals.
You must show through your actions that their trust in giving you a referral was well placed by making sure that the referred prospect has an exceptional experience with you.
2. By keeping your client fully informed of everything that is occurring with the referred prospect.
3. By continuing to deliver superior service to your client. Does this mean that you must perform perfectly with the referred prospect? What if there was an honest mistake or miscommunication? What if something out of your control happened during the course of the sale? Will these incidents destroy any possibility of acquiring additional referrals?
No, not at all.
The keys to gaining additional referrals from a client are to treat the referred prospect exactly in the same manner you treated the client and to keep your client informed of what is transpiring between yourself and the referred prospect.
Your client gave you referrals because they understood that giving referrals was in their own best interests and because you earned them through the service you gave them. You must now demonstrate that same level of service for the referral they have given you.
They expect you to perform at the same level for those they refer you to as you did for them. The service you gave them demonstrated to them that they could trust you with a referral. Anything short of that will result in a re-evaluation of whether you should be trusted with additional referrals.
That having been said, most clients understand that mistakes, miscommunications and problems arise in business. A single issue during the course of the sale to a referred prospect, even a major issue, will not sever your ability to gain additional referrals from your client if you address and resolve the issue exceptionally well. Clients don’t expect perfection, they expect exceptional service — both for themselves and for those they refer you to. How well or poorly you perform will be a major factor in determining your future referability.
Keeping your client informed of the progress of the sale with the referred prospect reassures them that you’re doing your job — and that all is well. You should also inform them if there have been problems and how they were resolved.
It is critical that you let your client know of issues involved with sales to prospects they have referred you to, before the prospect has a chance to relate the incident. You can relate the circumstances and the resolution in the most favourable light — the prospect may not. This doesn’t mean that you should lie or gloss over it, just that you can give the background and the full resolution without the emotional involvement the prospect will have. If you’ve done an exceptional job of resolving the issue, the tale told by the prospect should also be impressive.
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Keeping your client informed doesn’t mean bombarding them with emails, phone calls, and notes. A simple ‘thank you for the referral’ card immediately after receiving the referral and the occasional call or email will suffice. The object is to keep them in the loop and to reassure them that their referral was well made for both you and the prospect. It may be preferable to ask the client how, and how often, they would like to be informed of progress.
Clients are interested in progress with the referrals they make. They want to know the prospect is being taken care of in the manner the client expected, and they enjoy knowing that they have provided you with a quality referral. More importantly, they want to know that they haven’t been embarrassed in front of an acquaintance.
Simple actions will result in additional referrals — you just have to earn them.
