1. Self-audit
Before you even consider what to do with your customers, take some time to examine your business. Are you offering quality goods and services with pricing that customers like? Are you already receiving positive reviews from previous or current customers? If the answer to both of those questions is “yes”, then you’re ready to consider creating a referral program.
Having your business offer high-quality products and services as well as high customer satisfaction is an essential foundation of any referral program. If your business makes a positive impact with your customers (and that can include things such as customer support), then they’re likely to positively promote your business, especially when that promotion is incentivized.
2. Prioritize your customers
If you’re going to create a referral program, you need to be sure that your customers are at the core of it. That means ensuring that not only are your products exceptional, but that other aspects of your customer relations are of similar quality. The two most important areas in this regard are communication and customer experience.
Ensure that you can have good conversations with them. That could be via various communication channels such as social media from Facebook to Linkedin or direct emails. You also need to be sure that you can optimize the customer experience and this includes great customer service, an optimized and accessible website, eliminating any pain points, and offering an omnichannel experience.
3. Establish clear goals
The final part of preparing to create a referral program is to establish why you’re doing so and what your goals are. The most obvious goal is increased sales and revenue, but most referral programs look beyond those metrics and have additional goals identified. These can include:
- Increased customer retention and loyalty.
- The number of referrals.
- Creating brand ambassadors.
- Driving an increase in custom acquisition.
- Increased reach and brand awareness.
Your goals may be any combination of those listed and will depend on your own priorities. The crucial thing is to have them listed so you have a clear idea of the route you’re taking. It also means you can analyze results and see if there is progress towards the goals you have set. Using software with robust integration and analytics abilities allows for analysis of your various metrics and can let you tweak aspects of your program where needed.
How to create a referral program: action