A word of mouth recommendation is a primary factor behind 20%-50% of all purchasing decisions and solar market is not an exception. Solar panels are not an item that people run to the store and grab on a whim. They are a major investment that people spend time thinking about and researching before a final decision. A referral from a friend can make the difference on the final decision.
Setting up a solar referral program with an easy and fast tool to make your customers refer you can be a game change to your business and GetTheReferral will help you with that.
A referral program is the tool used to organize the company’s referral marketing: the act of spreading the word about a product or service through a business’ existing customers, among other groups of people.
The main reason solar referral program works is because they bring the element of trust to your prospect. People trust people more than anything else when deciding about a purchase. According to Nielsen, 92% of people trust recommendations from family and friends more than any other form of marketing, making the option of using referral marketing a no-brainer.
To successfully build your solar referral program, you need a clear goal before you can incorporate metrics into your business decisions. Only after you have your goals, you can track your referral funnel to get the results you want out of your program. As in any other marketing strategy, you need to set up SMART goals. SMART will respond to:
S: Specific
M: Measurable
A: Achievable
R: Relevant
T: Time-Bound
Referrals can come from outside of the company as far as for the inside teams. Every interaction you have and every relationship you build can cause a positive experience that can be shared with others and end up with a referral. That’s why you need to include in your company’s solar referral program first your past and current customers, but also the company’s employees, sales reps, business partners, influencers, and pretty much anyone that can help with the program.
A good way to show appreciation to the customers who bring you referrals is to reward them with different levels of incentives based on the quality and stage of the referral they send you through your solar referral program. For example, you can provide an incentive for any referral that results in a sales appointment (regardless of whether the referral makes a purchase). Then, you can offer a better incentive if the referral closes the deal. This is a great option for businesses that have a long sales cycle such as solar. When you set up incentives this way, it helps you increase the quality of the referrals you receive since incentives are tied to it.
The best way to reach out and keep in touch with your customers is through a referral app for your program, and there are two main reasons for that: In the U.S., 77% of adults own a smartphone. People who own smartphones spend over 80% of their time using apps as opposed to internet browsers (Source: Flurry).
Your solar business can benefit from having a customer referral app since it will increase their time connecting with your brand, consequently increasing the chances for referrals. One key point to increase your customer referrals is to make the referral process easy, and that is what a customer referral app does.
After your company receives a referral through the program, you need to know exactly what to do with that and when. Create a plan with timelines to call, schedule an appointment, send a proposal, and follow up, so your referrals don’t get lost. It’s also important to send the referral status to the Advocates (and reward them correctly) to keep them accountable and excited about the whole referral process.
An automated rewards system to quickly rewards your Advocates it’s ideal to prompt them to make more referrals. You can tailor your rewards system to best fit your business. With a customer referral program in place, you can see daily results right on your dashboard and offer more than one option of payment such as PayPal, gift cards, bank transfer, virtual debit card, etc. You increase your chances of having more referrals when you pay rewards easy and fast.
Educating your referral sources include many avenues: it is essential to get your sales reps on board with your referral program. You want them to be as comfortable as possible when promoting the referral program to their customers since they will be the fuel to the referral engine. You need to train them, constantly bring the topic on sales meetings and provide incentives for a great referral performance.
For your customers and prospects: your homepage is the hub of most traffic on your business website, that’s why you need to place the campaign for your solar referral program right there, rather than in a side menu, will attract the most amount of recognition.
Also, if possible, create videos to explain people the benefits of becoming and Advocate, how they can submit referrals and what would they earn for that.
The 3 stories below show companies that implemented solar referral programs and have seeing significant improvements on their relationship with customers, besides the amazing results!
SunPro Solar has been working with GTR for almost a year and seeing great results. They increased their referral closing ration approximately 7x after implementing GTR Referral Software and Kirstie Moser, the Director of Marketing, shared her thoughts about how the Referral App has helped the company to get more business from referrals. Read More.
Referrals already represents almost 40% of Energy Concepts' business, but they didn't want to deal with payment paperwork and mail checks anymore. After GTR, these problems are gone and they now communicate more proactively and directly with their customers. According to Ryan Gutierrez, the Marketing Sales Manager, GTR is more than a referral platform, it's an engaging program that changes the dynamic of the referral relationships. Read More.