Driving Business through Referrals..

“The purpose of Business is to create customers who create customers…”

Every day we hear a lot of nonsense from companies who preach but do not practice – especially when it comes to providing a good customer experience.

We know the horror stories (Hello credit card companies, US airlines, Banks, Internet service providers).

We know what it’s like to deal with companies who treat customer service as a cost so they either automate it to an extreme degree, staff and manage it with pure incompetence, or outsource to call centres where I swear they earn bonuses on how often they encourage a customer to suffer from a stress induced stroke (50 points), heart attack (100 points), or coma (1,000 points).

But is customer service really just a “hippie luxury” that doesn’t make sense for a business?

Well, I ran across these following statistics from Korona POS.

It’s about referrals. This is what they say.

• Over 90% of shoppers trust referrals from friends and family
• Conversion rates are 4x better for those who get a recommendation
• Over three-quarters of consumers are more likely to make a purchase when receiving a referral
• A word-of-mouth recommendation brings in 5x the sales that a paid ad brings in
• A direct referral is a primary factor in nearly half of purchases
• Half of consumers say that family, friends, and colleagues are the most important sources of brand awareness

Now here’s the thing. 

The customer experience you provide will determine if you get referrals or the opposite – free publicity on how much you suck. And they are not equal.

People with negative experiences are much more likely to tell others you are the business equivalent of a very unwelcome pest. 

So unless you want to be the usual suspect in the garbage bin of your industry, you will want to provide an experience that encourages repeat purchases and “positive” referrals.

Hence…Creating customers who create other customers.