In life and in business, the best and most meaningful relationships begin because of a referral from someone you know. For a business especially, the best source of new customers is a referral from a satisfied customer. If you don’t have a referral program in place right now, you are losing out on potential business, guaranteed.

Companies with referral programs report 71% higher conversion rates than those without a referral program in place. Of those same companies with programs in place, 69% of them report faster times to close new business.

Though the stats clearly support the upsides to having a referral program, your program should be more than just recommendations and incentives. The first step to a successful referral program is an exceptional product or service. You can offer all of the incentives in the world, but if consumers don’t support you’re product then getting referrals will be like pulling teeth.

Give customers something they love, make them happy and then watch the referrals roll in.

Having a great product or service will get you referrals, but if you aren’t asking for them, then you are still missing out on a major chunk of the new business pie. You need to explicitly ask your customers for referrals, or a large majority of your customers simply won’t provide them.

There Is a Right Time to Ask for Referrals

This isn’t a question to spring on them at any time. When do your customers realize the value of your product or service? If it is immediately after the time of purchase then you should be asking them shortly after they make the purchase. However, if the value is better realized after a few days, weeks or even months, then you should wait until then to ask for referrals.

Be Pointed When You Ask

Don’t ask questions like “do you know anyone that could use this product/service?” because it gets them thinking either yes or no. It is also quite difficult for someone to recall a specific person without any context. Instead, help the customer think of specific people or situations by asking something like -

• Are there any other managers within your company that mentioned experiencing similar problems, like the ones that you’re dealing with?
• You mentioned you belong to [insert association]. When you think about people who have similar operations, do you remember anyone talking about problems like the ones that you have been dealing with?

This should help jog their memory and help them think of people in their lives that might be able to use your product or service.

The last most important step in this process is thanking people for their referrals. They are putting their credibility on the line to vouch for you, so make sure you acknowledge this and thank them for their generosity. Make sure you handle these referrals with the respect and urgency that they deserve. The worst thing you can do is mishandle, disrespect or let leads like this slip through the cracks.

Companies like Dropbox and Uber have seen amazing success with their referral programs. They offer products that people love, ask for the referrals at just the right time and give incentives that drive people to refer anyone they can.

Taking a page or two out of their books, BizX is upping its referral game for the month of December in a big way!

250 BizX each if the referral signs up by December 31st.

Why Refer to BizX?

Aside from the obvious 50 Bizx that you and your friend will both get, referrals help grow the network. That means more places to spend your BizX, but also even more new market share that is just waiting to be captured.

Incentivized or not, the secret behind every referral is a quality product or service. At BizX we work to provide the best experience we can for our members. If you feel we have helped change your business for the better, then please tell your friends, and in the process, get a big chunk of BizX for doing it.