Jumpstart Your Referral Program with these Referral Request Templates
We’ve talked about how you can amp up your revenue flow with a killer referral program. You know you need to time your requests to your customers just right to have the most effect and to avoid becoming a nuisance. You also know that the reward you offer as an incentive needs to be appealing both to the referrer and the referral. No one wants to pass up a win-win situation, right?
And finally, you know that your referral program must be easy to explain. People will immediately distrust an offer that involves too many prerequisites or conditions, and that comes as no surprise. So you’ve made sure that for your referral program, there are no complicated hoops to jump through or a myriad of hidden clauses.
All of these things are necessary to a referral program that will accelerate your lead generation and sales.
Our Referral Philosophy: When and How to Ask
We’ve all been on the receiving end of an aggressive, even intrusive sales approach. The rep gives you their spiel or demonstration and then let’s you know about all the freebies you can receive based on how many leads you can give them. It’s a situation that can often be uncomfortable if you have any qualms about surrendering the contact information of your friends and family to a solicitor.
Our philosophy is more targeted than that, and much less aggressive. We’d rather have one solid referral than a dozen names of people who may have no need for what we’re selling. So our requests for referrals come after a positive experience with a customer. We know that this customer is satisfied and we want to reward them for their loyalty, so we inform them of ways they can profit by helping a friend or colleague also find success with our services.
The phrasing of your request for a referral from your customer can sometimes feel awkward or contrived, depending on the situation. Here are a few templates that we’ve modified for various settings. Hopefully these can inspire you as you customize your own request strategy.
Email
Emails are the medium of choice for most busy professionals as they’re interacting with their customers. They’re often preferred by your equally busy customers as well.
Depending on the service or product that you offer, the best time to mention your referral program is in your follow-up email after a service is delivered or a product received and tested, and especially after you’ve just had a positive interaction with a customer. You may already have a follow-up strategy implemented within your standard marketing efforts; it will be easy to tie in information on your new referral program.
Following a Positive Interaction
Dear [First Name],It was such a pleasure to speak with you today. I’m so pleased that our services have played such a positive role in helping you achieve your goals this quarter. Our greatest priority as your provider is to secure your loyalty not only with excellent service, but by giving you access to some killer perks, like our newly refurbished referral program.Here are the details:[Lay out the simple, step-by-step details of your program. List the rewards clearly for both the referrer and referral.]Everyone’s a winner with this program! Let us know who you think could benefit from [referral reward] and our services.Thank you!
Following a Delivery of Service/Product
Dear [First Name],Have you had a chance to try out your new [product]? Let us know if there’s anything we can do to improve your experience with us. We also want to inform you of an awesome opportunity to win huge rewards just for spreading the word about our company![Lay out the simple, step-by-step details of your program. List the rewards clearly for both the referrer and referral.]We’ve made sure that everyone’s a winner with this program! Hope to hear from you soon!Thank you!
In Person
If you’re in sales, chances are you’re well practiced at face-to-face interactions. You may even prefer it over emails and phone calls. However, you’re not going to arrange a lunch meeting or conference with your client just to talk about your referral program, so be prepared to tack it on to the end of your conversation or presentation.
Your goal is to end your interaction on a positive note, which lays the groundwork nicely for introducing an opportunity to help you out, cash in on a bonus, and benefit a colleague. It’s always a good idea in this situation to have a flyer handy with the full details of the program. That way you won’t have to hope they remember the details you’ve delivered verbally, and risk the chance they’ll forget.
Have At ‘Em!
No reason to delay. Get cracking on your referral program today. What’s your preferred method of requesting referrals? Let us know in the comments below!
No comments:
Post a Comment