What Makes a Good Referral?

One unexpected aspect of being a part of referral groups is having a contact for almost any product or service. Not just for yourself but also for your customers. Being able to be helpful and a trusted place for them almost always ensures a returning client. However, that brings up another question. What is a good referral? Of course, if someone is asking for a recommendation that's a pretty good start but it’s not the only factor. 

A good referral is going to vary business to business and maybe even season to season depending on the industry but it all still centers around what you offer versus what the customer needs.

Determining what you offer as a business may seem obvious at first. You know what services or products you offer as well as pricing and the scale your business can handle. But do you know where you sit in your market? What experience you have, your pricing, what services/product you deal in the most, busy seasons, and what kind of customer experience you provide are all factors in what your customer base looks like and therefore what a good referral looks like. Knowing this information and being able to relay it to other business owners could be the difference in those additional referrals and therefore additional business for your company. 

If you're fielding a referral for someone and perhaps you don't have this information, asking some simple questions to get the context is as decent a start as any. The who, what, when, where, & why of the situation can offer a lot of context for the scale and urgency of the client’s needs as well as the overall situation. 

Any referral is likely worth the time but knowing what a good referral looks like not only for you but the other business owners around you is a money maker and a time saver. So take some time this week and ask what your company deals best in. Identify some key industries that you often field referrals for and take some time to exchange the information around what makes a good referral for each of you. If nothing else you might learn some useful things about your community here at BING.