Practical Guidelines on Increasing Customer Referrals for Your MSP Business
There are multiple methods through which you can gain new customers and make more sales for your MSP business. One of the most beneficial techniques to consider for your operation is referral marketing. In general, customer referrals will generate more positive results and higher sales compared to cold leads. This can be attributed to the fact that referrals provide immediate credibility while cold links require you to slowly build trust. Unfortunately, most IT companies do not take full advantage of this marketing option. If you would like to improve your referral strategy, here are some practical tips to help you get started:
Make a Plan for Referral Requests
MSP owners often assume that if they provide exceptional service to customers, they will get automatic referrals. This might be true in some rare cases. However, if you want to increase your client base significantly, you must have a plan to generate referrals. In simple terms, you must learn how to make requests from your current customers. Most will be willing to give you help as long as your IT support services are good. For the best results, it is advisable to watch your timing when asking for referrals. You do not want to ask for a favor when you have failed to meet the objectives or when presenting your bills.
Attach Incentives to Referrals
The bottom line in all businesses is profit. You should keep this in mind when asking for referrals. While some business owners might give you a referral freely, they will be more motivated if there is an incentive. After all, they know that you will make profit from their help. Therefore, create a plan which will reward customers who provide good referrals. For example, you can offer them a discount for the managed IT support or give service credit. You can also give them a free upgrade of their IT assets or some other specialty free item.
Obtain Full Referral Information
You should not settle for a phone number and a name in the company when getting a referral from a customer. These are details that any sales or marketing professional in your MSP business can obtain with ease. You should ensure that you have acquired enough information that will make the sales process easier. In ideal circumstances, the customer should help you set up a physical meeting or at least perform an email introduction. You can help your current client achieve better results with referrals by providing support items such as business cards, newsletters or even new customer web links. With these tools, they will not have to rely on speech only.
Build Lasting Business Relationships
Your influential customers and growing businesses are likely to provide high-quality referrals for your MSP company. However, the pertinent business owners and managers are extremely cautious about giving referrals because this will influence their reputation. Therefore, if you want to obtain referrals through such companies, you should be dedicated to building good relationships. Therefore, you should ensure that your managed tech support services and sales touches are designed to inspire trust in your customers.
About our Contributor
Robert Naragon is the Founder and President of ITQue, Inc. (pronounced “i-teek”), an Managed IT Services based in San Jose and Campbell that provides IT Support in San Jose. ITQue provides a wide range of IT services to San Jose based companies. And ITQue provides managed services to help San Jose small and mid-sized businesses increase productivity and profitability with customized, flexible hybrid cloud and IT outsourcing solutions in San Jose. Prior to ITQue, he was the Founder and President of VistanetIT, Inc., also based in Campbell, an IT Support Provider to small and medium-sized businesses in San Jose.
