When you’re looking for a new service provider, how do you go about doing it? When you need a new accountant, IFA or someone to service your car, how do you find them? Chances are, you ask people you know to recommend someone. Why? Because someone won’t recommend a business to you unless they trust them. If they trust that person with their finances, their pension or their car, you can be pretty sure that yours will be in safe hands too.

You may have also noticed that people who have been referred to you are much easier to sell to. They’ve already been told great things about you by their friend or colleague, who they trust, so turning them into one of your clients is relatively easy.

However, rather than just waiting for referrals to come along – or hoping that they will – what can you do to encourage more of them? Here’s how one of our clients does it so brilliantly!

How do Referrals work for our clients?

Barry runs a number of fun, energetic camps for children, during school holidays. The camps are currently held at a number of private schools around Oxfordshire, which have really good facilities. The children who attend the camps regularly go home fitter and healthier after a week of camp, than when they arrived. They get to take part in a huge range of activities, including swimming, archery and canoeing.

The vast majority of new clients – the parents of the children – find out about the camps because their friends recommend them. Happy parents, whose happy children come home tired and well looked after, are happy to recommend Barry and his team to their friends. The business runs a referral scheme, where anyone who refers a friend, whose children are then booked into camp, can receive free days for their own children, or a bottle of champagne. There are some children who have had many weeks of free camp, as a result of all the referrals that their parents have made to their friends and their children. The referral scheme is advertised in the weekly newsletter that the business emails to clients; and it is on their website too.

However, there are also many parents who turn down the bottle of champagne or the free days of camp. Why? When they’re asked, they usually reply “Please just look after my friend’s children as well as you look after mine.” They want their friend’s children to experience the same fun, energetic camp that theirs enjoy. This means that the best way for Barry’s business to encourage more referrals is not by asking them, but by focusing on the quality of the service that they provide.

Can you encourage more referrals by providing the best possible service and by really looking after your clients?