They stay longer and usually have a positive experience because there was no pressure nor sales tactics used. They pay full price and are happy to be bug-free.

Once you’ve been in business a while and have shown customers a great experience, they will be more likely to refer their neighbors and friends.

As your customer base expands, this frequency of this happening is greater.

However, if there was a way to increase this, wouldn’t you do it immediately? Here’s the thing: it exists.

Almost every company out there has some kind of referral program. But the problem is that they are bland, just like every other company. It’s time to create something new and different, something that sticks in the customer’s mind.

The first thing to do is to forget about credit. Yes, quit offering a $30 credit to the account of the referrer (or whatever your dollar amount is).

Morningdove has taught this next tactic to countless pest control companies, and the result is an average of 22% increase in referrals.

Instead of offering credit (boring), offer a crisp twenty dollar bill!

Seriously, money talks more than some intangible promise of saving.

To take it a step further, offer something even more tangible, like movie tickets. One company ran facebook ads to their current customers asking for referrals in exchange for movie tickets.

They paid $300 to run a sponsored post, which got a handful of likes and engagement. That resulted in 6 people calling in with referrals. They spent $40 on movie tickets for each one, so a total of $540 was spent.

They got 6 new customers on their quarterly program, with yearly contracts of over $500 each. Assuming they stay with a company on average 3 years (some more, some less), they earned over $9000 from a $540 investment = $90 acquisition per customer, which is extremely low in this industry. Most pay over $200 per customer.

Try different things. Be creative. And be sure to let us know what has worked for you to increase your referrals.