Referral Marketing: Character and Competency More Important Than Customer Experience

This is a very interesting article I found on the blog of Evan Misner, founder of the BNI, and expert in referral marketing.

just finished a survey of more than 12,000 businesspeople from all around the world on the subject of networking. One of the questions we asked the respondents was “Which of the following is most important to you when referring business to others?” The choices were:

• Knowing a person’s character.
• Knowing a person’s level of competency.
• Using the person’s product or service myself.
• Knowing a person’s success.

Not surprisingly, “knowing a person’s character” ranked No. 1 in the survey. Interestingly, “using the product or service myself” ranked third out of the four choices! This is important to understand when building your own personal network of people referring you because it shows that people are definitely looking at more than just the quality of your products and services when they think about referring you to other people.
Often, we think that the best source of referrals must be our clients, customers or patients. Although they definitely are a good source, they are not our only source. In fact, based on this survey, personally using and experiencing another person’s product or services before referring business to that person was not as important to the respondents as other factors.
What this means to you is–you need to build your credibility with people who know you (whether they’ve used your business or not). If people trust your character and competency, they are likely to refer you regardless of whether they’ve actually used your products or services.

Now if you are considering a customer relationship management point of view, this study is very interesting. Indeed, maybe your best lead of prospects might not be your actual clients, but some people that have had a good impression after a commercial, or visiting your website. And you must take advantage of this feeling, this state of mood, to drive the buzz or so. This might be actually the reason why so many companies are interested by buzz marketing campaigns, to spread the word of mouth.

That also shows that branding, and especially the story that you tell people about your brand, is a valuable asset, that might trigger people to become your customers.

What do you think about it?

How To Use Social Score: Referral Marketing

I have talked this week about social score, which is one of the most important CRM concept that emerged for the web 2.0. Social score aims to identify the potential of one customer in regards of both his online community (in size and value) and activities (blog posts, number of tweets...)

But once you have identified its potential value, its ability to spread the word of mouth, you need to leverage your new abilities. Of course, you need to have set up a proper community management strategy, where you'll be able to interact with your customers, provide the appropriate response to their needs, but also survey what is said about your brand and products online.

Referral Marketing As A Community Management Tool
I believe referral marketing could be the best strategy to apply online. Indeed, you need to get a specific trigger, and to reward people that will bring you customers among their friends and community activities.

Referral marketing is commonly known in the real estate business, and helps agents to find new clients thanks to their existent network. Hence, referral marketing has developped a wide range of tips and techniques to trigger referrals at no cost. I think there is a lot to be learnt from it and to be adapted to community management.

The goal is to mix social score results (in order to identify the potential return on investment you could get on a specific customer) with referral marketing (that will enable you to reach new customers thanks to the one you already have).

And you what do you think about it? It will be interesting to speak with some already great experts of both worlds to see how they envision the concept.

Referral Marketing: le bouche à oreille et l'exemple du crédit du Nord

Alors que je me balladais dans ma rue, je passe devant le Crédit du Nord. Dans la vitrine, une publicité m'attire l'attention: « 2 clients sur 3 sont venus chez nous par le bouche-à-oreille ». La société met ainsi en avant cette stratégie de dévelopement commercial en avant, car elle est aussi une preuve de qualité de service. Si les clients du Crédit du Nord parlent de leur banque, et convainquent leurs amis de venir chez eux, cela veut dire qu'ils ont été satisfait du service.

Cette idée du bouche à oreille est depuis longtemps à la mode, notamment via le web et le fameux buzz marketing. Ainsi, grâce à la formidable capacité de l'Internet à diffuser de l'information entreliée, elle permet de faire du bouche à oreille de façon exceptionnelle.

Mais cette publicité m'a surtout rappellé une technique marketing qui est utilisé fréquemment aux Etats-Unis, et qui repose sur ce principe, le referral marketing.

Referral Marketing
Le referral marketing regroupe toutes les techniques et pratiques permettant de trouver des prospects via les recommandations de ces propres clients. Le constat est simple, il est très difficile de trouver des clients. Cela coûte cher (frais de publicité, temps passé à démarcher) et en plus souvent cela détériore la prestation: tout le temps et les efforts qu'une personne passe à trouver de nouveaux clients l'empêche de se concentrer sur sa relation client.

Le but du jeu est de garder des contacts réguliers avec ses clients, afin de les fidéliser, de les convaincre de la qualité de la prestation, et en même temps de prospecter de nouveaux clients.

Ainsi, le referral marketing vise à optimiser son effort de prospection, et le potentiel de sa clientèle afin de trouver de nouvelles opportunités de business. De nombreux coachs existent aux Etats-Unis, notamment Brian Buffini, le pape des agents immobilliers aux US, qui permettent de comprendre mieux cette technique.

En tout cas, je trouve que cette communication est innovante, et qu'elle met réellement en valeur la qualité de service que la banque offre aux consommateurs.