Comments on: The Four Pillars of a Successful Referral, Part 1: Your Relationship to Your Client http://salesandmanagementblog.com/2009/05/18/the-four-pillars-of-a-successful-referral-part-1-your-relationship-to-your-client/ Climate declared: 3.4 kg of CO2 per kg of product due to excessive amounts of hot air Wed, 15 Feb 2012 15:43:11 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.com/ By: TomSaleson http://salesandmanagementblog.com/2009/05/18/the-four-pillars-of-a-successful-referral-part-1-your-relationship-to-your-client/#comment-3784 Mon, 18 Jan 2010 03:38:19 +0000 http://salesandmanagementblog.com/?p=1081#comment-3784 I believe there is even more to it than that. I think referrals can be worked even more.

For example, a discount program for loyal customers, and provide any referrals with an immediate loyalty customer discount. And/Or giving out something small like a key chain, T-Shirt. And/Or even giving out a larger item through a raffle. New technology like Twitter can help keep a business in touch with its customers and from there, to their contacts.

There is always a double edge sword of using discounts… since it can generate expectations and customers holding out until a promotion is going on. It all really depends on the niche and the business model being used.

]]> By: MCE Round Table: The Contrarian Edition | Maximum Customer Experience Blog http://salesandmanagementblog.com/2009/05/18/the-four-pillars-of-a-successful-referral-part-1-your-relationship-to-your-client/#comment-2666 Sat, 23 May 2009 09:16:44 +0000 http://salesandmanagementblog.com/?p=1081#comment-2666 [...] to give referrals.” Paul McCord tells us the dark reasons why, and how to deal with it, in The Four Pillars of a Successful Referral, Part 1 at Sales and Sales Management [...]

]]> By: Jack Zufelt http://salesandmanagementblog.com/2009/05/18/the-four-pillars-of-a-successful-referral-part-1-your-relationship-to-your-client/#comment-2647 Tue, 19 May 2009 12:01:28 +0000 http://salesandmanagementblog.com/?p=1081#comment-2647 Great post. Maybe it should be changed to “Clients love to give referrals if you’ve earned them with good service and a quality product.”

]]> By: Dave Sohigian http://salesandmanagementblog.com/2009/05/18/the-four-pillars-of-a-successful-referral-part-1-your-relationship-to-your-client/#comment-2642 Mon, 18 May 2009 16:32:54 +0000 http://salesandmanagementblog.com/?p=1081#comment-2642 I worked for a enterprise software company that put the request for references into every contract they signed. At first that might seem quite pushy, but they saw it as a promise they had to live up to: if they provided great service, the customer would be willing to talk about it. The expectation was the at prospects would serve as references AFTER the project was live. The result? Close to 100% of their customers are “referencable”, which is pretty much unheard of in the software industry. Of course they had the great software and services to back up the request…

Dave Sohigian
TechDemoGuy.com

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