Customer advocacy is a hot new trend. Well, not really. Advocacy, loyalty, referrals, engagement — a dollar by any other name, spends the same. But I digress. Advocacy; the idea of having not just engaged customers, or loyal customers, but having customers who love you enough to rave about you to their friends, family and colleagues. It’s truly the holy grail of marketing.
Although customer advocacy has turned into a hot phrase around marketing management and marketing research circles, QuestionPro has been committed to helping you create an engaged customer base. That’s why we don’t sell “online surveys” (although that is the product) we serve as advocates for customer conversations, engagement, listening and relationship.
It’s one thing to have advocates, but it’s something completely different to leverage their influencer and power. The easiest, of course, is making it easy for them to give testimonials or referrals.
Collecting referrals and engaging customers can be easy
Recently, Software Advice a Gartner company, has completed a research study around referrals and reviews in the B2B space and after evaluating more than 2,300 respondents who were willing to give referrals, they found the following:
- 66% of respondents under the age of 34 are more likely to give a referral after receiving social recognition.
- More than 50% of respondents are more likely to give a referral if offered a direct incentive, social recognition or access to an exclusive loyalty program.
- 39% of respondents say monetary or material incentives such as discounts, free swag or gift cards greatly increase their chances of referring a brand.
Put together a super-two-fer of QuestionPro features to Develop and Engage Advocates
Luckily for you, QuestionPro has two fantastic features to help you start engaging with your customers right now — seriously, you can have this done in under 30 minutes. Here’s how:
- Head over to our survey template library and pick a “done-for-you” survey that we’ve already created for your industry. You can get more information about that here: http://info.questionpro.com/smallbizfeedback
- Next, create a reward or incentive for your customers to complete the survey. Remember, our research show that people would rather participate in a “First “x” number of surveys received get a gift card” type of reward.
- Launch your survey
- Stay in conversation with your customers by creating a social place for them to engage with you. You might choose a Facebook group or page, private Ning community or a private membership component of your own site.
The bottom line is that brand advocates don’t come easy. But, if you take the time to develop brand advocates, you will certainly reap the rewards.
