Personal Referral vs. Referral Letters - Which Is More Effective in Getting You Customers?

With any referral program, it’s key to remember that you want this to do one thing, uncommonly well. A referral letter is the “next best thing” to having a personal referral, without that person knowing who will be reading their letter. It can be really simple or very complex – as long as the main message that you want to get out there is clear and well defined, then having many is a good thing.

Every major website out there now has referral letters available to them, called testimonials. We have people who have written in to rave about a product – doesn’t sound like a big deal, does it? Over 60% of consumers have remarked that they 1) read user generated comments and 2) that their decisions have being greatly influenced by these testimonials. This is the main reason that many businesses spend large amounts on customer satisfaction and client follow-up.

With competition continuing to grow in todays marketplace, it’s becoming imperative to use programs such as this. Incorporating these methods has become increasingly necessary, so it’s worth mentioning them again.

Make sure you follow up with your clients and prospects; ensure the sales and delivery process goes smoothly and to their satisfaction; follow up, every step of the way. When you’re assured of their satisfaction, then ask for a referral – or ask for a referral letter, depending on the product or service you are offering.

It’s in areas where your company’s offerings are not in a wide demand setting that referral letters will come into play best, as not everyone has the connections to know someone who absolutely will want your product, but if they’re satisfied with your performance, there’s no reason that they shouldn’t give you a referral letter. Since testimonials can increase your business, it’s a strategy that should be company policy – to ask for a referral after any contact with a client.

If you cannot integrate client testimonials into a sales presentation, have them on hand to allow prospects to review an honest assessment by a previous client of your product or service, this will help close the deal. Taking into consideration the effect the referral letter has on sales is not easy and it’s incredibly hard to find metrics to back it up, but it is a known fact that our opinions do affect others, however trivial they may seem to us at the time, and that this influence has a huge impact on every sales arena.

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