Customer Service Tips

Customer Service Training:
How Not to Handle Customer Referrals

So last week a friend needed some HVAC work done in his house and called me to ask for a customer referral. In this case I recommended "John" (not his real name). I'd worked with John on a rehab and he had great service, good communication, and fair pricing – In short, he was the perfect, professional sub.

My friend called John for an appointment and his office staff set a time and date. My friend took a vacation day off of work and waited... and waited... and waited. No show, no phone call.

Now my friend did what most customers will not do; he called John's office. To be frank, the only reason he did was that I had given John such a high recommendation. The office staff was extremely apologetic, blamed the problem on a miscommunication, and set another appointment.

Well, you can guess what happened... No show, no phone call. It turns out that John was just really busy, had enough work (too much actually), and didn't need the job. Great for John. Bad for my friend. Let me be blunt: John was rude and short sighted. Everyone in this industry knows there WILL come a day when John will be starving for work.

But John succeeded in alienating my friend and embarrassing me. Not only that, he missed out on literally years of customer referrals (that's free marketing, folks!) that my friend and I would have sent him. As it so happened, just two weeks later my own home air conditioning system went out and needed complete replacement. I didn't call John.

So what should he have done? Here are three options.

• Charge more. If you're lucky enough to be busy, then you can charge more for that "emergency" call. Let's say that John's usual rate is $75 per hour. John could say something like this: "Thanks for the referral, but to be honest I'm really busy right now and have lots of other customers waiting. I can come out, but its going to cost you $125 per hour."

Now they may take the job, or they might not... but you're communicating with the prospect, and if they do pull the trigger, they've made it worth your while. In any case, you've kept the lines of communication open and shown some respect to the prospect and the one who gave you the customer referral.

• Strategic Alliances. There's no need to go it alone-find another independent contractor in your same specialty and start working together. An electrician I know has been very successful in this area by getting another electrician to handle his overflow and vice versa.

Using this technique, John could have said, "I appreciate the call, but I'm really busy and can't get to you for at least a month. If you can't wait that long, I recommend you call George at 555-1212. Tell him I sent you and he'll take really good care of you."

Obviously you'll need to find someone you can trust and does good work, but by doing this you'll retain a good prospect for future work. And let's be honest... the chances are that when George is busy, you'll be slow...

• Be honest. If neither of the above two techniques appeal to you, just be honest with the customer. "Thanks for the call. To be honest, I'm swamped right now and wouldn't be able to come out for at least a month. If you can wait that long I'd love to help, if not, I understand. Can I call you back in two weeks and see how you're doing?"