• Make the process of getting a loan with you a great experience

“Every contact we have with a customer influences whether or not they’ll come back. We have to be great every time or we’ll lose them.” – Kevin Stirtz

Sure, doing a good job will get you some referrals, but good is what people are expecting of you. If you just give them what they expect, then referrals will be moderate at best. You need to approach the loan you are doing for them as an audition or job interview for the loan you want to do for their friends. It’s going to be a lot easier later to ask them to tell their friends about you if you feel you have really wowed them, and a lot more likely for them to actually do it.

Your clients know that when they recommend you, the service you provide is going to directly reflect on them. If you do a poor job for their friends it makes the client who recommended you look bad. This fear is a genuine obstacle that stops both personal and professional referrals from happening because they don’t want to look foolish or that they have bad judgement. So you need to make it blindingly obvious that you will do a great job for their friends or clients, by proving it in the loan you do are doing for them now.

“Merely satisfying customers will not be enough to earn their loyalty. Instead, they must experience exceptional service worthy of their repeat business and referral. Understand the factors that drive this customer revolution.” – Rick Tate

Your clients are unlikely to refer their friends to you if they didn’t enjoy working with you.You need to let your client see that the service you provide is going to make them look great when they refer you to their friends.

Recently we did some minor renovations at my home. We were happy enough with the work that was done, but we expected any builder to be competent. What impressed us, and made us recommend them to our friends, was the extent they went to in keeping their work area in our house clean throughout the process.

We knew it was going to be messy with some walls being knocked through, but their efforts in sectioning off the areas, use of air blowers to push the dust outside and vacuuming at the end of each day is what went beyond our expectations. Then, when the job was completed and they were paid, they came back another day with a pressure cleaner to clean off our paving that had gotten dusty. It was what we weren’t expecting that made us tell our friends about them.

It also wasn’t that the renovations went without any problems, there were some. But when any issues arose they were easy to work with for us to resolve things. So it doesn’t require doing things perfectly, just being able to deal with issues in a positive way when they inevitably come up.

You need to accept that doing the loan and being professional is what they expect. When people get what they expect they shake your hand, say goodbye and forget about you. It’s the extra that you do, exceeding their expectations and surprising them that they will remember and tell their friends about.

“If you do build a great experience, customers tell each other about that. Word of mouth is very powerful.” – Jeff Bezos

Getting a home loan is not an exciting thing to do. Most people go to a Broker for the simple reason that they don’t want the hassle of running around and trying to find a better loan themselves, they are confident they can do it themselves if they want, it’s just easier to get us to do it. So first and foremost we need to make everything as easy and convenient for them as possible. Help them at every possible stage of the process, don’t cut corners.

Probably the most important thing is to never let your clients feel neglected. It is a cancer to your chances of getting referrals. You might be working furiously in the background and chasing up lenders, but if they don’t hear from you they will very quickly start to think you have forgotten about them and that they aren’t a high priority for you. You need to create the exact opposite impression, by being over the top in contacting them and keeping them informed — even when you don’t have anything new to tell them. It conveys that you are on top of everything and should a problem arise, you will identify and handle it promptly.

You should also try and find ways to provide unexpected benefits. As I’ve mentioned already, I talk to my clients about property investing and give them books or other resources in this area. It just serves to set me apart from their view that I am just the guy that does their loan, but that I have extra value to provide.

Put simply, ordinary service will get an ordinary levels of referrals. So provide an extraordinary customer experience if you want an extraordinary response.