The difference between customers “Likely” to recommend and those “Very Likely” to recommend is much wider than you think. Let’s look at how a conversation could go between a prospective print buyer who is asking one of your customers for help choosing a printer.
The ideal situation: One of your “Very Likely” to recommend customers:
“Hello Henry, I am looking for a printer to do a special project for us. It involves bindery, laminating, and we are mailing this to 1,000 customers. It is a manual. Do you know anyone?”
Then Henry responds with “Oh, you gotta work with these guys at ABC Printers. They are just great. I do all my difficult print jobs with them, they keep me in the loop, catch problems that I self inflict on myself, and are always hitting our deadlines. Let me give you their number and speak with Joe Barton. He is just great”.
As an owner and sales person I would feel just great with my customer’s performance! That performance is a direct result of your performance. The quality work and service you provide makes it easy for them to feel confident in you helping their friend.
Now here is Henry if he is “Likely” to recommend you.
“Yeah, I work with ABC Printers. They are PRETTY good. I THINK they could PROBABLY do that job. I think you can find them in the yellow pages under “Printers”. I think the guy you want to speak with is Joe Boredom”.
As an owner or someone is sales I wouldn’t be too thrilled with my customer’s enthusiasm here. The prospect is probably thinking he may consider ABC Printer, but it definitely isn’t a homerun and he probably should just keep asking other friends.
If Henry is one of those who says “Not sure” I would recommend you the conversation would go something like this.
“You could call my printer, ABC Printers, but I would watch their pre-press. They have missed stuff before so you may need to watch them depending on the complexity. You may want to give them a shot”.
ABC Printers is not flattered to say the least! Now it can get really ugly from here. No one has customers feeling the way this next person feels. Only kidding, we all make mistakes.
Here Henry is feeling like a hostage and must buy from you, but is “Unlikely” or “Very Unlikely” to recommend you. In this case Henry feels liberated and finally can let you have it!
“I really can’t recommend ABC Printer. They have botched more than one job on me and killed me. I gotta use them because of corporate mandate. The owner is a golf buddy of my boss. Constant errors, their pricing is way too high, and I don’t know how they stay in business. Sorry I can’t help here.”
Ugh! This is what brings a business to the brink. We don’t need to many of these characters running around spreading doom and gloom. What was that commercial “Don’t let this happen to you.”
Now let’s get back on the bright side of life.
Keep your employees focused on “WOWing” customers and keep all employees accountable for driving the customers to jump on the chance to refer you. Give them the opportunity to brag about their great decision to work with you. If someone is “Likely” to recommend you, find out what it will take to get to “Very Likely”.
It is amazing how many customers will give you a false sense of security by saying “Likely”. Some customers will say “I never give anyone the best ratings.” I totally disagree with this and any time you probe and dig deeper you will find that they do recommend other suppliers who are “WOWing” them.
Your “Very Likely” customers are most likely to take full advantage of a referral program, drive prospects through your doors so you don’t need to spend big advertising and marketing dollars, and they will help you stay profitable. Creating more “Very Likely” customers will maintain that stability in your business. Rally and promote to your team to focus on the customer no matter where they are in the organization. Everyone is in customer service and their goal should be to delight customers.
Focus on keeping a high percentage of your customers in the “Very Likely” to recommend bucket.