In the latest of surveys, 4,000 customers from several different shops, were contacted by phone and asked three very simple questions: 1) was the customer still satisfied with the repair? 2) Did they have friends or family that would also need these same type of services in the next year (which I feel is pretty objective, who knows if they will get in an accident or crash into or back up into a pole?) 3) Would they refer your PDR services to those people?
The very real and telling results were that 87.6 percent were still satisfied, of those people, nearly 100 percent knew of others that could also use those services. What was quite scary is that, with the third question, there was an overwhelming amount of those that answered no, they would not refer.
So why do you think they said no? They are saying that the service was ‘average’ and certainly not memorable. You will never get a referral on average service. Would you refer a restaurant or any public service type business, if the service was average? Of course not. You would never tell your mom or best friend “Hey, you should go down to that new restaurant, they had average service.” Your customers today are far more demanding than they used to be. They want to be wowed, they want to be catered to and they want to be thanked in ways that impress. This is the answer to getting referrals.
This doesn’t have to be the hardest thing you’ve ever done, it’s really quite simple. You need to start with customer service; this starts with being friendly in your greeting, using proper phone etiquette and using solid updating procedures. The latter is probably one of the biggest pet peeves that customers using any industry complain about.