7 Tips to Generate Referrals for Your Business
Customer referrals remain paramount for managed service providers, but how can service providers ensure customers offer referrals consistently? Here are seven tips to help MSPs generate referrals for their businesses.
![7 Tips to Generate Referrals for Your Business 7 Tips to Generate Referrals for Your Business](https://eu-images.contentstack.com/v3/assets/blt10e444bce2d36aa8/bltebabb08eb9cceac0/65246a824db255aeae7790d0/Referral_0.jpg?width=700&auto=webp&quality=80&disable=upscale)
Customer referrals remain paramount for managed service providers, but how can service providers ensure customers offer referrals consistently? Here are seven tips to help MSPs generate referrals for their businesses.
Social networks give MSPs a quick, easy way to connect with customers instantly. But how an MSP uses these networks may dictate its long-term growth. Stuart Crawford, a consultant at IT services marketing company Ulistic, notes that social media "ISN'T marketing – it's a PLATFORM for marketing." As such, he recommends spending a set amount of time listening, engaging and publishing social media content to connect with customers, and ultimately, generate referrals for your business.
Email marketing may serve as a double-edged sword; it empowers MSPs to reach their target audiences quickly, yet sending too many emails or sending messages too frequently puts service providers at risk of alienating customers. But an MSP that focuses on delivering educational emails that inform customers about its services can generate leads and boost its chances of receiving customer referrals. "Don't be a spammer. Be an educator who needs to get the word out," Ted Hulsy, vice president of marketing at cloud backup services provider eFolder, wrote in a blog post. "You should have a growing library of content such as white papers, eBooks, blogs and newsletter pieces that need to get into the hands of clients and mere suspects alike. In many cases, you will need to slice and dice your email recipients with lists so that the right message ends up in the right hands."
Networking enables MSPs to promote their brands, and potentially, build partnerships as well. Be sure to connect with business clubs, user groups and trade organizations. By doing so, an MSP can highlight its services and its brand, attract new customers and reap the benefits of new customer referrals.
MSPs can host their own networking sessions, too. These sessions offer immense value because they enable service providers to connect with prospects and customers, learn from them and use customer feedback to develop new services. In addition, MSPs can use these sessions to highlight service improvements or new services as well as their commitment to their customers, improving their chances of generating customer referrals.
MSPs can get their brands in front of large groups of prospects if they embrace public speaking engagements. These opportunities may be available at conferences and training sessions and empower an MSP to highlight its expertise. "There are many different tech organizations in just about every market and they are constantly looking for folks who are willing to present, speak or sit on a panel. Speaking at events gives you the chance to share your ideas and solutions with your prospects and industry peers," remote monitoring and management (RMM) software provider Continuum wrote in a blog post.
MSPs should not be afraid to add to their sales teams. An effective sales team can promote a service provider's brand and ensure this company can offer its customers the services they deserve day after day. And with the best sales professionals in place, a service provider can immediately boost its chances of generating referrals as well.
"Earning" referrals requires MSPs to devote the necessary time and resources to build long-lasting partnerships with customers. But MSPs that focus on the customer journey can ensure each customer receives dependable support. And after this partnership is in place, an MSP can earn referrals by asking a customer for endorsements, testimonials or case studies that highlight how this service provider fulfilled a customer's IT needs.
"Earning" referrals requires MSPs to devote the necessary time and resources to build long-lasting partnerships with customers. But MSPs that focus on the customer journey can ensure each customer receives dependable support. And after this partnership is in place, an MSP can earn referrals by asking a customer for endorsements, testimonials or case studies that highlight how this service provider fulfilled a customer's IT needs.
How does your business generate customer referrals? Share your thoughts about this story in the Comments section below, via Twitter @dkobialka or email me at [email protected].
About the Author(s)
You May Also Like