Cleaning referrals are one of the most valuable sources of new business. Find out how to make them work for you.
In the digital age, it seems like cleaning referrals through word of mouth might not be as powerful as they once were. However, word-of-mouth advertising, especially in today’s connected world, is one of the best ways to develop your business’s professional reputation.
Inspiring your clients to share cleaning referrals with their friends isn’t always easy, though. Even if you’ve built up goodwill with your existing customer base, many customers need a bit of encouragement to share your company’s name with their peers.
If you want to kickstart local audience growth, it might be a good idea to offer your clients access to a referral incentive program.
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Building your commercial cleaning business with a strong cleaning referrals program
Advertisements are powerful on their own. With the right tools in place, you can get an idea of who your audience is and what kind of marketing techniques may best draw them to your business. While you can make advertising personal, however, nothing is quite as individualized as someone else’s referral.
People tend to trust a friend’s word when it comes to the quality of a business. A referral, then, suggests that your client has faith in your company’s ability to clean a space adequately.
If you’ve done a particularly good job cleaning someone’s property or if you’ve developed a friendly relationship with a client, you can usually trust them to speak well of your work. In turn, you might expect their good opinion to translate into dollars — but this will only happen if they’re motivated to tell their friends about your work.
In passing that word along, other potential clients can start to catch wind of your positive reputation. The ones that come your way will be more likely to trust you with larger jobs, which means that you’ll be able to put more work on your roster with less marketing effort.
While the value of cleaning referrals can’t be understated, you still need to encourage your current clients to spread the good word.
Incentive programs reward your existing clients for letting their friends know about the services you offer. Building a reference incentive program from the ground up can take some time and effort, but the return on investment tends to outweigh the startup costs.
Different incentives motivate different people. Determining which business-appropriate incentive will most appeal to your clients may require you to do a bit of research.
You can get ideas from your clients through a few different means: Post-work surveys, marketing emails, and even casual conversation. Alternatively, you can assess any of the referral incentive programs that your competitors have created.
Once you have a better idea of what incentives are common in your industry or the ones that your clients prefer, you can start integrating them into your new program.
Some of the most popular cleaning referral incentives include:
Discounted Cleaning Services
Everybody likes a chance to save money. If your clients start to pass cleaning referrals around their inner circle, you can offer them a discount on some of the services that they use. Consider offering clients a ten percent discount on carpet cleaning, window washing, or trash removal for a set period after they’ve converted a client to your cause.
You can alter this discount based on the number of clients they send your way or based on their history with your business. In certain circumstances, it may even be appropriate to create individual discounts with clients who are active advocates for your business.
Early Appointment Scheduling
If you schedule client cleanings on a month-by-month basis, there may be dates on your schedule that clients clamor over. You can offer anyone that spreads the word about your business an opportunity to get ahead of the competition.
Give clients who’ve sent new customers your way early access to your schedule. They can choose a cleaning regimen that better suits their needs, and you can enjoy the additional income.
If you do establish a cleaning referrals incentive program, track your ROI and your new clientele. When you meet new clients, ask whether they were referred to your business. Take down the name of the person who referred them and keep a record of it.
When you have referral records to reference, you’ll be able to see which of your clients are bringing in the most business. You can double-check on any existing referrals before handing out incentives, and maybe offer additional rewards to clients who seem to be particularly enthusiastic about spreading the good word about your business.
Building your client list with an incentive program
If you’re looking to build your audience in an innovative and cost-effective way, turn your advertising strategy to word of mouth. A referral incentive program can get your existing clients talking about your services with their friends.
In exchange for incentives like discounted services and early access to scheduling, you can expand your client list and generate goodwill among your existing customers.
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