~by Haley Lynn Gray~
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Your current clients are your best referral sources and resources for more clients. If you treat them well and provide good customer service, they’re likely to thank you many times over and help you grow your business by leaps and bounds. But, you have to do a few things to turn your clients into the greatest referral sources you have.
You want your clients to be raving fans so that they are willing to help you grow your business to its fullest potential.
So, what can you do to turn your clients into raving fans and major referral sources?
1. Answer your phone promptly. Make sure that you answer calls when they come in, and return messages within the same day. Successfully managing your phones can help you get clients in the first place, but it will also help you keep the clients you do have. You’d be surprised at how many businesses don’t really answer their phones promptly.
2. Return messages promptly. If someone leaves you a message, be sure to return it within the same day. The exception to this would be solicitors and other people who want to sell you more stuff that you probably don’t need for your business. Promptly, in this case means returning messages within 24 hours. If you are unable to return calls in this fashion, then consider hiring someone part time who can answer phones and return messages for you. Your business will thank you for it.
3. At the end of each service cycle, send a survey to your clients and ask them for feedback on how things are going. From the feedback, determine what went well and what didn’t go well. Also, ask for referrals at the end of the cycle because satisfied customers are more likely to refer customers to you. If you find out that there are service concerns, then you should address them promptly, and make sure that the customer is thoroughly satisfied with the outcome.
4. Thank your clients for doing business with you. Gratitude is an important part of a thriving business. Be sure you always thank your clients for doing business with you; let them know how appreciative you are for their business.
5. Offer discounts to get repeat business from customers. You can often get a client to become a repeat client if they are happy. If that is something that works for your business, then offer a small discount to your current customers for becoming a repeat customer. Offer them your best possible prices, even if you don’t offer an explicit discount. Customers will find out if there are better deals, and the cost of getting new customers is frequently fairly high.
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Treat your current customers like gold, and they will reward you by helping you bring in more customers and clients to your business.
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Meet the Author: Haley Lynn Gray
Haley helps female entrepreneurs create a strategy plan for their businesses – so they can make enough money to spend quality time with their family, pay for their children’s dance lessons, pay bills – and not worry about where the next client is coming from.
Haley is a serial entrepreneur and founder of Leadership Girl. She helps other entrepreneurs build their businesses by sharing the benefits of her business education and experience through Business Coaching.
Whether you want to get a new business off the ground or expand an existing business, Haley can assist you.
Connect with Haley:
- Work with Haley: https://leadershipgirl.com/work-with-haley/
- Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/Leadershipgirl
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/haleygray
