Yesterday we gave you a couple of tips on how to promote lead generation by encouraging your customers to give you business referrals.  Today we are giving you three more:

Complaints handling

Even bad news can be turned into a positive.  If you receive a customer complaint, how you handle that complaint can either make or break your relationship with that customer.  If you resolve the issue quickly and to the customer’s entire satisfaction why not ask them for a referral?  When people receive good service, such as you helping them to resolve an issue for them, even if it was your fault to begin with, they will feel obliged to ‘repay’ the favour.  You can ask for the referral either after the issue has been resolved, whilst you are still speaking with them having resolved their problem or even by way of a follow up email or phone call.

Online Product Reviews / Testimonials

Every business that sells products online should have a facility which enables customers to post a review about the product they have just purchased and their buying experience.  If you sell services rather than products, include a guestbook page in your website to allow your customers to post testimonials about the excellent service they have received.  A product review or testimonial is effectively a third party endorsement of your business. Don’t forget that a recent study has revealed that over 70% of online buyers will read product reviews / testimonials before they make a purchase.   Think about it – when did you last buy something online without doing your homework?

Offer Incentives / Vouchers

When you ask your customers for referrals consider offering them some type of incentive, if appropriate.  If you are offering a high value, high margin product or service, you could offer cash as an incentive.  For example, you could offer your customers a small referral fee or high street store voucher for every customer they refer to you.  Sky TV in the UK recently offered their customers a £30 Marks & Spencer voucher for every new customer who took out an agreement with Sky TV.  The new Sky TV customer also receives a voucher of the same value. 

Another idea could be to offer your customers a discount off their future purchases from you in return for business referrals.

If you would like more information about our Lead generation services please leave a message below or visit WSI IMS – WSI Internet Marketing for Business in Surrey, Sussex, Kent and throughout the South East of England.