One great way to generate more leads is with referrals.  I recently had 2 experiences that reminded me about the importance of customer service as it relates to generating referrals some time down the road.

I ordered a product online on Tuesday.  It was shipped UPS.  The tracking number said it would arrive on Friday.  When it didn’t get delivered on Friday, I called.  Somehow, though I’d never been contacted, the driver had concluded I’d moved.  Furthermore, UPS had automatically rerouted my package to a house I haven’t lived in for 6 years.  When I asked if I could pick up the package at the distribution center, they said it was in transit to a completely different center.  When I said I’d happily pick it up at the other center, they said it was closed.  I said that if it was in transit, there must be someone there to unload the truck, and given that the error was their fault, I’d be grateful if the person who takes it off the truck would set it aside for me.  Then they told me it’s not in transit, that it’s in a vault with thousands of other packages, and there’s no one there to open it.  Whatever.  So can they just reschedule it to be delivered to my address (the original one) on Monday?  No.  They have to leave a message for someone to call me on Monday so that I can tell them that that the address they initially had is my correct address, and then they’ll deliver the package on Tuesday.

At this point it’s 3:30 pm.  I hung up the phone and called Western Honda, where I get my motorcycle repairs done.  I was thinking about taking a longer ride tomorrow, and had a couple of simple but old repairs I was hoping to resolve beforehand.  From what I recalled they are open until 6:00, but when the service manager answered I asked to be sure.  He said that they close at 4:00 on the weekends,  but that it looked like he might be around a little later.  He then asked me what I needed.  I explained the repair, which he was already familiar with, and told me to come on down.  I showed up at 4:15, and 15 minutes later they had knocked out my request, and I am extremely grateful to them for it.

If your team has a can do attitude and the ability to execute like Western Honda then you’re well on your way to collecting referrals from your happy customers.  But there is something else that will really accelerate the process; asking!  So reach out to your existing customer base and ask them to tell their friends about you.  At WealthNet, we make getting referrals regularly easier by automating the process of with custom CRM.  By keeping in regular contact with people who you’ve served in the past, you vastly increase the chances that they’ll remember you when you can provide a solution to one of their acquaintances problems.

Have you had success recently at generating referrals?  Are you concerned that automating a process such as reaching out to your existing customer base will meet with limited success?  Tell us wha’t on your mind in the comments!