Window Cleaning Referrals

Keep Your Client in the Loop After You Get the Referral:
Congratulations, you’ve just received several referrals from one of your clients. Great job! But hold on, you’re work has just started. No, I’m not talking about contacting and selling the referred prospect, I’m talking about keeping your client in the loop.

One of the primary reasons clients are hesitant to give referrals is that they are afraid of being embarrassed in front of a friend, relative, acquaintance or co-worker by you not performing as you should. So, when they do give a referral, they have a vested interest in what’s going on between you and the prospect. Not in the sense of whether or not the prospect purchases, but in how the prospect perceives you and the value being referred by the client.

When a client gives you a referral, you learn a number of things:
The client will give referrals. Obviously, you just received one or more.
How well the client understands what you do. The quality of the referral will let you know how well your client understands what you do and who is a good referral for you. The better the referral, the more the client understands. The poorer the referral, the more work you must do to educate them for future referrals (and future sales to them for that matter).
How much they trust you. Generally, the stronger the trust relationship between the client and the referred prospect, the more the client trusts you.
They have more referrals to give. Seldom will a client give you all of the referrals they can make at one time. If a client gives referrals, you can almost bet they have more to give—if you keep earning them.

How do you get those additional referrals?
Additional referrals are earned, just as the original referrals were earned. You earn those additional referrals by:
Giving your client the assurance that you’re trustworthy with referrals. You must show through your actions that their trust in giving you a referral was well placed by making sure that the referred prospect has an exceptional experience with you.
By keeping your client fully informed of everything that is occurring with the referred prospect.
By continuing to deliver superior service to your client.

Does the above mean that you must perform perfectly with the referred prospect? What if there was an honest mistake or miscommunication? What if something out of your control happened during the course of the sale? Will these incidents destroy any possibility of acquiring additional referrals?

No, not at all.

The keys to gaining additional referrals from a client are to treat the referred prospect exactly in the same manner you treated the client and to keep your client informed of what is transpiring between yourself and the referred prospect.

Your client gave you referrals because they understood that giving referrals was in their own best interests and because you earned them through the service, you gave them. You must now demonstrate that same level of service for the referral they have given you. They expect—actually demand—you perform at the same level—or higher—for those they refer to as you did for them. That level of service you gave them was what demonstrated to them that they could trust with a referral. Anything short of that and they will reevaluate whether you should be trusted with additional referrals.

That having been said, clients understand that mistakes, miscommunications, and problems arise in business. A single issue during the course of the sale to a referred prospect, even a major issue, will not sever your ability to gain additional referrals from you client if you address and resolve the issue in an exceptional manner.

Clients don’t expect perfection, they expect exceptional service—both for themselves and for those they refer you to. How well or poorly you handle the issues will be a major factor in determining your future refer-ability.

Keeping your client informed of the progress of the sale with the referred prospect reassures them that you’re doing your job—and that all is well. It is also your source of informing them if there have been problems and how they were resolved.

It is critical that you let your client know of issues involved with sales to prospects they have referred you to before the prospect has a chance to relate the incident. You can relate the circumstances and the resolution in the most favorable light—the prospect may not. This doesn’t mean that you can lie or gloss over it, just that you can give the background and the full resolution without the emotional involvement the prospect will have. Of course, if you’ve done an exceptional job of resolving the issue, the tale told by the prospect should also be impressive. However, you always want problems to be related to your client by you—you don’t want to get a phone call from the client asking what happened.

Keeping your client informed doesn’t mean bombarding them with emails, phone calls, and notes. A simple “thank you for the referral” card immediately after receiving the referral and the occasional call or email will suffice. The object is to keep them in the loop and to reassure them that their referral was well made for both you and the prospect. Even better than the occasional call or email is to explicitly ask the client how and how often they would like to be informed of the progress.

Clients are interested in what’s going on with the referrals they make. They want to know the prospect is being taken care of in the manner the client expected, and they enjoy knowing that they have provided you with a quality referral. More importantly, they want to know that they haven’t embarrassed themselves in front of an acquaintance.

Simple actions will earn those additional referrals your clients have—you just have to earn them.

Window Cleaning News & Videos

Duo looking to clean up for Comic Relief: Two Wells window cleaners have pooled their time and will be washing windows in the city centre to benefit Comic Relief this week. Kevin Pearson, of Wells Traditional Window Cleaning, and Richard Burt, of RB Ecoclean, are planning a 24-hour window wash in the Market Square, starting at 6pm on Friday and finishing at 6pm on Saturday. Mr Pearson said: "This is a free window clean, but we hope that shops, restaurants, pubs, clubs and businesses can support us and donate some money for Comic Relief." To help promote the effort Steve has had his van airbrushed. He expressed his thanks to Steve Slight, of Joeby's Airbrush Art, Wells, and also to Tim Wood from printing firm St Andrew's Press, which provided promotional leaflets and letters free of charge. Kevin said: "Richard and I are determined to stay awake, so if you see us and you want to give a little, it will mean a lot. "It's pretty amazing what Comic Relief do with the money they get, and you can be sure it will put smiles on many faces."
The duo are looking for some volunteer musicians, who might be interested in playing in allocated time slots on Saturday to help keep them going as the 24-hour marathon continues, as well as face painters and entertainers who would donate their time and takings to Comic Relief.
Anyone who can help should contact Kevin on 07914 641643.

Burglars responsible for 65 break-ins in the Yarmouth area since the beginning of December. The thieves have been single-mindedly targeting cash and jewellery, leaving behind other less portable valuables such as laptop computers. Focusing on burglary hotspots north of Yarmouth, including the villages of Caister and Hemsby, officers tracked down and questioned eight possible suspects before undertaking a stop-and-account exercise around Caister in the afternoon, the time when a lot of the break-ins have occurred. They also spoke to a genuine window cleaner, Gary Taylor, who has been doing the job in Caister for nine years, to ask him if he was aware of any bogus operators. Other people stopped and questioned by the pair, including a local garage worker on his bike, all seemed supportive of police efforts to track down the burglars responsible for the crime wave.
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The Customer Factor Window Cleaning Software: With window cleaning software pricing going up and features being eliminated or not applying to window cleaner’s specific window cleaning business needs, many window cleaners are having trouble finding a software product relevant to their business. Fortunately, The Customer Factor Window Cleaning Software was developed giving window cleaners the ability to manage and grow their window cleaning businesses with multiple features and benefits available to them in a simple to understand user interface. In an online interview, according to Steve Wright, the developer of The Customer Factor, being a former window cleaner allows him to have a unique perspective on what window cleaners need in a window cleaning software product. "Most window cleaning software developers have never cleaned a window in their life, so they end up creating software programs that are bloated with features that aren’t needed or lacking features that are", explains Steve. Seeing window cleaners succeed in their businesses is the main reason Mr. Wright developed The Customer Factor. "I saw there were major gaps in other window cleaning software products that I tested, so I decided to do something about it", Steve says. As far as the argument that a window cleaner can effectively run his or her window cleaning business manually, Steve points out that taking shortcuts by doing everything manually or using 2 or 3 different free online programs that aren’t made for window cleaners is a recipe for failure or best case scenario, leads to too much wasted time. To learn more about The Customer Factor Window Cleaning Software and read what other window cleaners are saying who use the software every day in their window cleaning business, Mr. Wright invites you to visit The Customer Factor or contact him at 256-546-2446.

High court to rule on city ordinance: The court heard arguments between building owners and the union that represents janitors over a 2004 ordinance that bars the wholesale dismissal of workers when a large building changes its contractors. Some of the court's seven justices showed some sympathy with that sentiment, but the issue they must decide is whether state law allows the city to tell businesses what to do. The ordinance says that if the owner of a building or complex larger than 100,000 square feet switches security, janitorial, maintenance, stationary engineering or window washing contractors, the new firm can't dismiss the old firm's workers for 180 days, except for cause or, if there are too many of them, by reverse seniority. The Service Employees International Union's attorney, Michael Healey, told the court that if home rule cities can't enact such ordinances, then they aren't really empowered to rule themselves.

Police hunt for thieves in seperate incidents: Recent incidents in the area have included a man falsely claiming to be collecting money on behalf of a window cleaner, and another man calling unannounced at people's homes, gaining entry after speaking with the householders and then stealing items from the houses. Cadet Danielle O'Hara of Motherwell’s community safety department said: “All window cleaners are required to hold a current licence, issued by North Lanarkshire Council. Each individual employee of the company must have their own licence. The licence contains a picture of the individual and they must produce this if a customer requires them to do so. Door-to-door salesmen are also required to be licensed. “If any person has concerns over people operating without a licence they should contact the licensing department at Motherwell Police Office.”

Its Christmas all over again for Steve Stevens of Sonlight Window Cleaning in Murray, Kentucky as he shows us his water fed pole truck mount kit he has just bought from window cleaning resource. His second video shows us his first installation of "Rain Flow" gutter guard also from window cleaning resource.

The Customer Factor - Window Cleaning Softwear

The Customer Factor - Click on the images above to take you to the website & see the video. Introducing a revolutionary Window Cleaning Software Program designed to save you time and money in addition to increasing your profits by completely automating your window cleaning business...without complicated "techno speak" and the expensive price tag associated with most software products.

Steve Wright has been featured previously on the blog with his "3 bears window cleaning directory" & Steve has also written "How to start your own residential window washing business" guide and adds: "Who else wants to build a successful window cleaning business that generates huge profits on demand...without the time wasting and costly learning curve?"

"The Customer Factor is a superb software product that has been built from the ground up to make your window cleaning business more streamlined and more productive then it is. But if you're not really convinced of that after reading this webpage and member comments along with viewing the "behind the scenes" video above, no problem. That’s why I offer a risk-free trial. Try it out and see if it fits. If it doesn’t, no harm done. The chances are great though that if you own or manage a 1 to 10 person window cleaning business, The Customer Factor is the answer you’ve been looking for."