Where do you get good customer references from?

This part is really easy; just ask your your customers. Happy customers are usually very pleased to tell you what they like about what you have done for them, and your attentive listening shows them respect and will reinforce your relationship with them.

You can either pick up the phone to a new customer a few weeks after purchase, or wait until you see them next, and ask the question.

“Can I ask how you are enjoying ?”

“Can I ask what it is in particular that you especially like?”

“If there was one thing that you especially have benefited from,
what would that be…?”

“How has having helped your business…?”

Remember to use an open question, one designed to get your customer to talk to you, and then sit back and wait, get ready to start taking notes.

Often, when your customer is casually talking to you, they will give you wonderful feedback you can use; you just need to be sure to catch it, writing it down as soon as you can.

Permission? Yes, I suggest you will need it. You will certainly need it if you are going to use a specific reference on your website, or in a written communication.

For websites, I suggest that you only use the full name and company details of the reference, and only if you have their full permission in writing. Remember that once posted on your website, your customer’s name will echo into eternity, bouncing around the internet, found by searches on Google whenever your customer changes jobs, moves companies, quotes for a contract. And once posted, you will not be able to recall the page from cached memory on a myriad of servers. As a close and safer alternative, you can use the individual’s initials rather than their full name.

For general use, try a simple “Thank you for telling me that, would you mind if I shared that with other customers? I won’t tell them your name, just your general sentiment…” is polite.

Where you don’t have permission, perhaps you forgot to ask (it’s easy), you can still use the reference in a sales context, moving down the route of “our customers often tell us…” “Last month, a customer told me…” “If you look in our book of customers references, you will see that we often get praised for our xyz service, customers love it”.

The key to this is to build the habit of collecting references into your sales process so that your business is constantly collecting them.

Of course until you start using them, you won’t get a real experience of how this will make your selling process so much easier, and that is up to you!