Growing a Service Company that is Worthy of Referring

Growing leads within a service company in the industries of HVAC, plumbing, and electrical can come from several different lead setting areas.  However, one of the most important areas are client referrals.  When a company is buzzing with happy and thoroughly satisfied clients then there are loads of free, positive, word-of-mouth advertisement that is reaching a market that may not have been reached through broad-scale advertisement or technician-generated leads.  In our post today, we are going to touch on three ways that business leaders can grow their independent contracting company into an establishment that is worthy of receiving strong client referrals:

Recruit and hire excellent team members

The first component of growing an excellent company that is worthy of referral leads is to constantly be searching, recruiting, and hiring excellent team members.  While this step seems rudimentary, it’s importance cannot be stressed enough.  A company is only as great as its team members and leaders choose to be.  So it is vital that company owners, managers, and leaders fill their business building and company vehicles with individuals that possess passion, integrity, a willingness to learn, and with those that always put their best foot forward.  Even if your company is not in the process of immediately hiring new team members, it is important to always keep those that had great interviews, great referrals, and great resumes on file in order to stay in contact with these potential hires.  Companies perfect and grow the strength of their company team and work to grow referral leads when their leaders thoroughly train current employees and recruit strong potential employees.

Offer service that is completely thorough and outshines the industry standard

Along with recruiting and hiring awesome team members, it is also vital that companies ensure they offer service, in every capacity, that is above and beyond the average industry standard.  This step begins with instating and training all team members on the non-negotiable action steps that make up strong service excellence.  When all coworkers consistently follow through with these steps that help to grow a satisfied client-base, organize internal components of the company, and make company procedures run smoothly then your service company is one step closer to developing an enterprise that is worthy of client referrals.  This type of service excellence also plays a major role when CSRs and technicians deal with clients both over the phone as well as face-to-face in the field.  In both cases, it is important that company team members listen first to the needs of the client before jumping to a resolution or assuming the client’s need.  When clients see that their service company is interested in listening and meeting their most pressing needs first before moving on to their leads or sales agenda then they can feel better about forming a long-term relationship with the company and feel confident in referring the company’s services.

Offer a means for a satisfied client to provide a referral

Along with the two important components from above, it is also beneficial when companies offer a means for clients to provide referrals.  A client that is completely happy with their service or sales experience may be more than willing to give a referral but if the company never provides a simple way to give the referral lead then the client’s positive and promotional thoughts may go unheard.  Thus it is a great idea for companies to provide referral cards to clients at the end of their experience.  As well as provide a soft lead-in to the purpose of the cards such as;

“Betty didn’t you mention that you have family in town? (Yes) Do you know if they own their home? (Yes) Do you think they could use our company’s services in any way? (Actually, I think they could).” 

By providing a gentle lead-in, it gives the client’s mind time to adjust and transition into thinking in terms of providing a referral and gives the tech a natural way to ask for referrals.  Implementing just a few of these simple techniques can give your company an advantageous leg-up in the area of referral leads.

Growing a strong base of referral leads works to bring new and recurring business into your independent contracting company.  In our post today, we explored three areas that help boost your company’s service excellence and help make your company worthy of referring by: recurring and hiring awesome team players, providing amazing service, and providing a means for clients to give referrals.  Thank you for following our weekly posts.  Here at Service Excellence Training, we love turning learning into earning!

-Resource curated by Whitney Stewart of Service Excellence Training