Your potential customers have to know a lot about your business before they make a decision to do business with your company. They may want to know the owners of the business, the values of the company, the calibre of staff, the product or service offering, the performance of the company, the quality standards and possibly the pricing of the goods. Your business has to be visible both to the current and potential customer. There are many channels you can use to make your business known to the customers including media advertisements, internet message and pamphlets among other things. You are free to use a combination of channels to make your business very popular. However the most important, cheap and effective channel is to make your business known is through referrals using existing customers.
Make customers kings in your business
You have to make sure the customers are the most important persons in your organisation. A customer is not a guest but a reason of why you exist in business. It is the customer who provides the funds to pay all the key stakeholders in the business. The customers should therefore be accorded the best customer care service in light of their importance in business. All the staff should be at the service of the customer. The customers should be very happy with our service before we approach them for referral business.
Create platforms which your customer can use to generate referral business
You could consider some of the following in enhancing the capacity of your customers to generate business for you through referrals;
- Meet regularly with your key customers to update them on the performance of the company
- Promptly send circulars of new products , services and changes to your customers
- Organise a customer day where staff will be available to say thank you to the customers.
- You could avail a platform to your customers to advertise their products where possible
- Organise capacity building programs beneficial to your customer
- You can sponsor some of customers to attend different forums or meetings
- Give your customers enough calendars and diaries in case potential customers ask for them
- Remember to associate yourself with customers when they are celebrating achievements and also associate with them when they are facing serious challenges
- You could avail some marketing materials to your customers in case they ask for them
- Attend referral introductory meetings organised by the clients
- Organise sports day and invite both current and potential customers to attend the day
Make your staff ready to give quality service to customers
In order to achieve maximum customer satisfaction your staff must be ready and equipped to render quality service to customers whenever they visit our premises or interact with our staff. The staff must undergo intensive customer training for them to appreciate the importance of customer care. The staff should also be availed information of different products and services offered by the company. The staff must know their role of attracting, serving and retaining customers at all times.
Author
John Muhaise Bikalemesa
Director: Big Drum Advisory Services Limited
