Everyone loves referrals, and when I talk to agents and ask them where most of their business comes from, or their biggest opportunities for growth is, they say referrals, or something along those lines. But every time I’ve pressed most of them to show me the data, they can’t. They just know it.
In reality they might be, but if you can’t measure and capture it, you can’t really know for sure.
So I’m going to teach you how to measure and capture your referral business, so you can replicate it!
The Three Types of Referral Sources.
The first are referral partners, people or businesses who send you referrals because they know you’re going to take care of their customers. For insurance agents the best ones are typically mortgage loan officers, or other insurance agents who don’t write that type of business.
These are mostly relationship driven, but Nicholas Ayers wrote up a great template about how to get more referral partners.
The second type of referral source is from your promoters, we’ve talked about these before, but they’re your best customers, the people who leave reviews without being prompted or very light prompting. They might even ask you how to send referrals to your team.
The third type are dark referrals. These are very similar to the promoters, the people who do like working with your team. But they’re not going to go out and leaving google reviews on their own. But when you take care of them, give them a solid experience and make them feel heard and taken care of. They’re the ones talking about you in their social circle, at the proverbial water cooler at work.
When Jane from accounting is talking about the horrible experience she just had after a slip and fall claim on her sidewalk. Your customer will chime in and tell everyone about the awesome experience they had last summer when they had an accident and your team handled the entire claims process for them.
When the boys are at the golf course burning some worms, and Jimmy says he’s thinking about buying a new Tahoe to pull his jet-skis, your customer will say I hope you don’t have insurance from some lizard, you should talk to my agent, they gave me several options, and actually saved me a bunch of money.
Capturing the Referrals
Now this is the tricky part. How do you capture that?! It’s not like there’s some magic phrase your team could use to find out. Right?!
You don’t even need any tech for this. Just some training with your team, and maybe adding a field to your lead forms.
Here’s the phrase:
Who referred you to us, we’d love to send them a thank you card.
One of the first things your team should be asking new prospects is this question. It works great because most of the time when you ask things like how did you find out about us, they default to the easiest answer, which is likely google or a friend.
But when they’re told their friend, or colleague might be recognized it turns their brain on. And bonus points this tells them you take care of your customers, by doing nice things. Giving you yet a psychological advantage when it comes time to make a buying decision.
Taking Care of the Referrals
But it’s not enough to just ask the question.
You need to put that data into your CRM or AMS. Then you need to take care of those referrals. You don’t need to do anything major, even just sending them an email telling them you appreciate the referral goes a long way. But if you want to blow their minds, send out a handwritten card thanking them for that referral, and you’ve probably created a lifetime customer.
Once you’ve got a good data set you can generate a report of the people who have given you the most referrals last year, look at a few things, like the types of policies they bought, the premium on those policies, and the claims filed. You’ve just generated the best Ideal Client Profile money can buy.
Now you can tell show your team exactly the type of customers you want to have.
Referrals are a powerful source of business growth, but it’s not enough to rely on them without capturing and measuring the data. By understanding the different types of referral sources and using a specific phrase to capture referral data, you can create a more accurate picture of your referral business. Taking care of referrals and looking at the data can also help you identify your ideal client profile and target your marketing efforts accordingly. By following these strategies, you can unlock the power of referrals and take your business to the next level.