By Dan Dougherty
The inventor of the the Net Promoter Score Fred Reichold simplified defining business excellence by asking customers one question. Would they promote your service or product to their friends or family based on a scale of 1-10? A score of a 9 or 10 is a promoter.
If a promoter is your best customer than what is your next best customer? I believe it is the customer that was referred by a promoter. Personal referrals are the best marketing exposure for any business. Nielson Ratings indicate that a personal referral is the most trusted form of advertisement. 84% of people that receive a referral trust this marketing source of information and two out of three or 67% will act and buy. The numbers for trust and action go down significantly for sites like Angies List and even lower for advertising on social media platforms. What is a better place for leads? Ad’s on Facebook or referrals from your promoters? It’s quite simple, you see when a person puts their reputation on the line and refers you and your business they are placing there social capital at risk. What risk does a person have when they place an anonymous opinion onto Angie's List or Yelp? None. Referrals come from people that know, like and trust you and your business.They bring the highest close ratio of any sales leads. Strong businesses with value added products simply don’t get enough of these best possible leads. There are four reasons why personal referrals don’t scale. In my next post I will share with you these four reasons and in the post after that I will share an amazing way to utilize simple mobile technology to allow referrals to scale for your business.
