How to identify and leverage your Promoters

We often see companies overlook the massive potential of leveraging their Promoters (if you don’t know what promoters are, it’s kind of your company ambassadors). Those customers love your company, your products/services and are willing to refer your company to friends/colleagues/family.

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That being said, those customers simply don’t think of doing it. That’s why you need to provide them with a low friction way to promote your company. When the experience is fresh in their minds, they rarely need more than a nudge to share that experience with the world.

In this article, I’ll share simple ways to identify and leverage your Promoters.

How to identify Promoters

To identify your Promoters, we use the Net Promoter Score system. In an online survey tool, you’d ask your customers the same question:

“How likely is it that you would recommend our company to a friend or colleague?”

The respondent is then given a standard scale that ranges from 0 (not at all likely) to 10 (extremely likely). Based on how a customer responds, he/she is classified into one of three categories:

• Promoter (9-10)
• Passive (7-8)
• Detractor (0-6)

What to ask for

One simple and important thing to ask your Promoters is an online review.

Public customer reviews (such as Google and Facebook) are really important for your business. Having lots of good ones will create social proof that will increase prospects conversions. Reviews will also improve your search rankings which leads to a greater exposure for your products or services.

The facts found from a study are very impressive:

• “90% of consumers read online reviews.”
• “88% of consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations.”
• “72% of consumers say that positive reviews improve the trustworthiness of a local business.”

Another important thing to ask for is a referral.

Promoters are people who are very likely to refer your company to others. However, you need to provide them with a low friction way to do so. According to a survey, 83% of consumers are willing to refer after a positive experience—yet only 29% actually do. We simply need to ask.

As you probably know, referral is the most inexpensive way to get clients, period.

How to ask

One of the best timing to ask for a small favour is just after a customer has praised your company.

For example, a satisfied customer thanks you for the great service you provided during a transaction. This is the perfect opportunity to thank him, to add to his comment and to invite him to share his experience by leaving you a review on Google.

Of course, that’s the ideal scenario.

However, this is not a solid process and it depends on too many factors that can go wrong. This is why we recommend having a systematic process in place. Our clients use our software (InputKit) to survey their customers after a service is done and, at the same time, identify their Promoters. InputKit then generates a list of all their Promoters so they can act on it.

Once a month, they will send a Reviews or a Referral request to their new Promoters thanking them for their recent feedback and asking them for a small favor. Some even offer an incentive/reward for customers who actually promoted them.

Here’s an example of the email they use:

Hey [customer name]

 

Thank you for your kind comments about us in the recent survey! We love hearing from you and learning about your experience with us.

 

If it’s not too much trouble, I have a quick request: could you please leave an honest review on (Yelp/TripAdvisor/Google Places/their blog/etc…)? Here’s a link.

 

Even a sentence or two would be hugely appreciated. If it helps us get more awesome customers like you, it’ll let us keep making our services better for you ?

 

Thanks, and if there’s anything at all that I can do to help you, don’t hesitate to let me know.

To wrap up, your Promoters represent a massive potential for your business. However, you need to provide them with a low friction way to promote your company.

Of course, you first need to identify them using an online survey tool, such as InputKit. Once you identified your Promoters, you can ask them for online reviews and/or referrals. We recommend having a process in place to do so.

Looking for a tool to identify your Promoters?

We’ve built a modern software called InputKit to help businesses get customer feedback and identify their Promoters. It automatically follows up with your customers to make sure everything’s OK and to ask for feedback to help you improve your business.