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Every business owner hopes for that magical moment when a customer not only speaks well of their company, but also tells someone, “No really, you should try it.”

Here are three tips to help your customers out in this moment and get even more out of your referrals:

1. Offer large group discounts
2. Give your best referrers more word of mouth tools
3. Make referrals incredibly portable and easily trackable

1. Offer large group discounts

Events like 5Ks, obstacle races, and half marathons are more fun with friends. So many organizations encourage you to bring as many friends as you can by offering discounts for big group registrations. That motivates people to invite friends along, pass a registration form around the office, and get the family involved. That’s good for the participant because it makes the race more fun, but it’s also great for the company or organization putting it on because word of mouth spreads farther and faster in groups.

2. Give your best referrers more word of mouth tools

Blue Apron, a meal subscription service, gives each of their customers three trial weeks to share with three different friends. If you give them all away, and your friends use them, Blue Apron will send you three more to share. Why let your best talkers stop talking? Find ways to follow where your referrals are coming from and send more resources to the people talking about you most.

3. Make referrals incredibly portable and easily trackable

Uber gives every one of their customers a code to share with their friends who haven’t tried it yet. That code gets new customers $25 off of their first ride and sends the same discount to the code-giver once that new customer uses it. The referral code is kept on the user’s Uber app or online, so wherever that customer has their phone, they have the code. It makes it incredibly easy to share through virtually any medium.

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  1. Lessons in business | Rural New York Small Business Owner - September 7, 2015

    […] People refer friends to a business far less frequently than most SBOs would like to believe. Here are three tips for getting more referrals. […]

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