[paul@ctcs]

Evening all,

Having been trading a year we are expanding the business on both sides which means i need to generate more carpet cleaning jobs

An idea of mine is to leave four numbered 20% off vouchers with each customer and then ask them to pass them on to friends and family with the potential reward of MONEY if the vouchers are used, after each job i record customers details ie name, address,work undertaken, time taken (i do this any way, it only takes a second of my time an is useful info to keep) and voucher numbers left with them, so the 1st customer will be left vouchers 1, 2, 3 and 4.

If i then recieve the 4 vouchers back from new customers (earlier customers friends, family, etc) i send a cheque for £10 to the customer who has passed the vouchers on.This gives them the incentive to pass on word of the great job i done for them

What do you fellas think to my plan? hope i worded it so its understandable :-/

Paul

[jasonb]

I use a similar system of numbered referal cards, but I would advise against giving away cash. Offer a free carpet clean instead. For example a £30 carpet clean might cost you £1.50 in materials plus your time and a £30 offer sounds better than a £10 cash one and costs you less. Well in my opinion anyway.

[Dynafoam]

Paul,

For once I agree with Jason, except that I would sugest that the vouchers be redeemable against the next clean - you do want to go back, don't you?

If you want to be more generous, double the value of the voucher.

John.

[jasonb]

And you could also include a free Stainguard  

[Mark Betts]

I have been "toying" with the idea this week of operating a Referral Rewards  card system.

EG

6 boxes on the clients card which I hand to them on there first clean.

Each time they use me for cleaning or each time they recommend someone who uses my servives I sign the box.

When all 6 boxes are filled up they get £50 worth of cleaning.

Also was thinking abut putting an expiry date on the card, say 18 months from the first clean so they have to fill the card up in this time frame to gain the £50 of cleaning.

This way the dont procrastinate in recomending me if it has an expiry date.

flippin  ell "procrastinate" that was a big word for me.

Anyway

What do you think?

Mark

[Dynafoam]

Mark & Paul,

Despite my earlier post - I did not wish to pour cold water on enthusiasm - my feeling is that is a customer is going to recommend you, they will do so for reasons other than reward.

Either a genuine wish to help a friend/relative or sinply because peolple like to be the one 'in the know'.

If a reward is on offer, they will take it, and if you leave paper/card with them that has some percieved value they are less likely to loose or bin it, and here lies the true value of the reward scheme.

As an incentive to refer I think the value will be very small, so you should balance the costs against the gains.

This said, I should point out that I have never felt the need for any marketing of this kind, so my comments are untried theory.

John.

[paul@ctcs]

Thanks for your input guys. i'm pleased you agree with the principle idea with the cards and a reward as incentive. It may be interesting to try both rewards, cash and a free clean of a greater value and see which one is more effective???

Thanks Paul

[DanielWelford]

I offer a free 5 pounds m & s voucher for any recommendations.

Works a treat, as gets the customer to proactively recommend you rather than mentioning you if asked.

Dan

[Londoner]

A bottle of wine as a thank you (not a reward) for the referral works very well. It only costs about £4 for a bottle of Jacobs Creek Chardonnay and the customer is bowled over.
Get some of those bottle gift bags from a card shop and do the job properly.
The same thing works for Estate Agents.

[Ian Gourlay]

On one of the marketing courses I went on the suggestion was that you send a crispy new £5 or £10 note to the customer that recomended you.

I cannot comment on its success or failure as I never implemented the idea.