How do I ask happy customers for referrals?
Ask right after a job goes well, and make it easy for the customer to pass your name to a neighbor. Happy customers are often glad to recommend you, but the chance to do it usually comes weeks later, when a neighbor mentions a problem in passing. By then the customer needs your name and number close at hand. Your part is asking at the right moment and making the passing along simple.
Why don't happy customers send more referrals?
This spring a landscaping company turned a homeowner's yard around. She tells the crew it looks better than it has in years, and she means it. In July her neighbor stops her at the mailbox and asks who did the work. She remembers a good crew and a green truck, and she cannot come up with the company's name. The neighbor searches online and calls someone else.
She wanted to help, but all she could give her neighbor was a description of the truck. A lot of lost referrals happen exactly this way, between a customer who likes you and a neighbor who never gets your number.
When is the right time to ask for a referral?
Ask right after the job goes well, while the customer is looking at the result and feeling good about it. That is the same moment that works for asking for a Google review, and the two requests sit comfortably together, because both come from a customer who is pleased with the work.
A referral request that shows up months later with no connection to anything feels like a sales move. The same request at the end of a good job feels like part of saying thank you, and customers respond to it that way. If something went wrong on the job, the time to ask is after you have made it right and the customer has told you they are happy.
How do you make it easy for a customer to recommend you?
Give them something to pass along. A customer who has a message on their phone with your company name and a link can forward it to a neighbor in a few seconds. A customer who only remembers your truck has nothing to forward.
Staying in touch matters here too. Referrals come up at random moments, often long after the job, so the customer who has heard from you a few times since then still has your name handy when the neighbor asks. That is one of the reasons a business keeps in touch with past customers through the year, even when there is no service due.
Why do referrals matter so much on large jobs like a new roof?
The larger the job, the more a homeowner wants to hear from someone they know before they call. Many homeowners ask around before they choose a roofing company, because a roof is expensive and the quality of the work is hard to judge from the ground. A neighbor who can say your crew did her roof last year and left the yard clean carries more weight with that homeowner than any ad.
Homeowners who come to you by referral often arrive already trusting you. The first conversation is easier for both sides, and you spend less time earning their trust and more time talking about the job.
What a fix looks like
In a business that has fixed this, the customer whose job wrapped up this afternoon gets a thank you message that evening, with a review request and a link she can forward to a neighbor in a few seconds. A few weeks later a new caller says the woman two doors down sent her, the office writes that name on the new customer's record, and the owner calls to thank the neighbor that same week. The phone rings more often with homeowners who already know your crew did good work on their street.
The Home Service Guild Marketing Operations System sends the thank you, the review request, and the refer-a-friend link as part of Word of Mouth.
Questions owners also ask
Should I offer customers a reward for sending referrals?
That is a choice for each owner, and plenty of businesses get referrals without one. Whatever you decide, the customer who sends you a neighbor should get a personal thank you, which means you need to know who sent whom.
How do I find out where my referrals are coming from?
Ask every new caller how they heard about you and write the answer down with their record. After a season you will see which customers and which neighborhoods send you work, which tells you where your good name is already spreading.
Can other businesses send me referrals too?
Yes. Tradespeople who work in the same homes are often asked who they would recommend for work they do not do themselves. If you are easy to reach and do good work on the jobs they send you, they will keep recommending you.
