Getting current customers to recommend your products or services can be a key objective in driving sales from new customers.
We often survey businesses’ current customers to find out how satisfied they are, and if they have or will recommend the business to others. Such surveys are formal measures of sentiment and intention.
Businesses can also benefit from exploring customers’ more relaxed, less formal activities that are effectively recommendations but which few consider or report to be recommendations. When you know about these casual situations, your marketing can encourage what’s said in those to generate more business.
The less formal measures – moderated individual discussions or group discussions – seek to understand how people are, when not in formal “I recommend” situations. Such occasions can be when family, friends, workmates or neighbours are chatting or even just looking around, in someone else’s home.
In these casual chats, people talk about what’s happened, what they’re planning or are doing. Or even the need for an extra bathroom (the 7 am congestion!!!) and where to get the money for that.
Sometimes, just seeing someone else’s new dishwasher or sofa can start a chat about why it was needed.
The chat can morph into whether the new one is better than yours, was it pricey, or where did you find it – online or in-store – and more. These casual chats are not “please recommend” occasions, but can be thought-starters to a “maybe I should upgrade too” state of mind that you can market to, stimulating more business.
If you’d like to know how these less formal techniques can assist you to generate new customers, please call or email me. My details are below.
T: 0414 543 765
E: derhamp@derhamresearch.com.au
LI: linkedin.com/in/philipderham/