+49 661 9642 - 0 info@business-app.com

Reference Selling: the best way to convince customers

Satisfied customers are the best advertisement and the best protection against competitors.
If your customers are satisfied, everyone should notice that. With good reference selling you can generate new prospects and convert leads into customers. On the other hand, it also helps with customer loyalty.

References are also exciting for our own employees. Nothing gives more motivation than a satisfied customer. But many companies find it difficult to create compelling reference stories. What is most important? This contribution reveals this.

Reference Selling significantly influences the purchase decision

Consumer evaluations of their experiences with products and service providers have a decisive impact on the purchasing and decision-making processes of other consumers. This development is confirmed by a GfK survey in 2017 conducted by Greven Medien : two thirds (66.4 %) of German citizens no longer make a purchase decision without first checking evaluations on the Internet. 31.9% of all respondents state that ratings in online portals influence their decision strongly or very strongly.

Reference Selling – a look behind the scenes

What is most interesting: what was the customer’s problem and how was it solved? How did the company proceed and what were the challenges? These “behind-the-scene” moments are very important for other customers to see if the company can deliver flexible solutions and has the expertise to match. If you can already demonstrate solutions for well-known customers, you automatically receive a leap of faith. Reference stories are an important sales argument, especially for the acquisition of new customers.

Reference Selling – how to get a great reference story

If you want to attract attention and stand out from the competition, you need reference marketing. However, many companies find it difficult to create references.
These are the typical success factors, so that in the end a good reference story is created:

    • Good cooperation from all involved
      An exciting reference story can only be written if all the exciting facts are gathered together.
    • Motivating the customer to a reference story
      Often the customer has his hands full and is not exactly waiting to get extra work. Good research in advance helps here.
    • Lively narrative style
      Nobody likes to read miserably long texts – more success is achieved with crisp short sentences and pictorial language that arouses emotions.
    • Appropriate image material
      Also here applies: emotional, exciting hangers obtain the best effect e.g. photos of the work employment or its result are more exciting than a picture of any company building. The presentation is most impressive with a video.

Reference selling – facts are not everything

With reference stories it is basically no different from painting. With the pencil one creates a foundation that has been achieved through cooperation with the customer. But it only becomes really interesting when colors are added and you start “coloring”. Attention, this is not meant to create untruths. It is not completely uninteresting how many employees the customer’s company has or how long the company has existed. But it is not the most important thing. More identification potential for other customers is provided, for example, by a concretely identifiable success that has resulted from the use of the new product. Scenic and detailed descriptions also arouse the interest of the reader. A look at the customer’s history is also often suitable to show the enormous development of the customer, in which the new solution has its share.

How can Reference Selling be implemented in everyday life?

Obtaining the right information and building a structured reference story is not so easy for many. Often the creation of a good story takes a relatively long time or is postponed because the daily business has priority.

Now there is a tool with which reference stories can be created easily, structured and with little effort.

The Reference Manager provides a template for the creation of reference stories and helps to break down and write down the customer project into its work steps, challenges and solutions. No information is forgotten. Images and videos can also be captured for reference.

Collaboration with colleagues and customers is simplified. All required information can be conveniently obtained electronically by colleagues, e.g. in sales or customer service, and entered directly by them. Communication with the customer in the form of conversations and emails is also easily and quickly documented for later traceability for reference purposes. This also includes approvals for the use of the reference by the customer, which are thus traceable at all times.

Of course, the Reference Manager also helps to keep the overview. The status shows which processing phase each reference story is in. Is the reference story available to the customer for approval or does a colleague still have to provide input? Everything can be traced very easily.

Create the basis for good reference selling now and create exciting references:

View the Reference Manger!