Rewards/Kickbacks?

[svp07 14]

Does anyone have a reward for a referrals system? I was thinking that for someone I have done work for I would offer a kickback of say $25 for each job landed over $300. That would mean that could end up paying for the work they had done.

Thoughts?

*My father hated the idea and I thought it was better than a coupon...I hate the coupon idea.

[One Tough Pressure 580]

I offer residential customers a discount if they refer a friend and I get the job. It is not in the form of Cash back, but credit for either that cleaning, or a future cleaning if their work was already done and paid for.

This gives them a deal and helps to assure that they will call back to use their credit.

[redinbaugh 14]

I have a friend I went to school with that works for his dads fire & burglary prevention company,I give him $100 for every ansel system instalation customer he refers to my company for scheduled cleaning that turns into a yearly contract

[CCPC 26]

I pay a 10% refferal fee to another pressure cleaning contractor in my town everytime he reffers a job to me that I end up doing. He has been around alot longer than me and sometimes has a lot more work than he can handle. He has never asked for the refferal fee, but I believe it is a good business move on my part. You would be suprised at how much work someone will send your way when they can make a little something by doing nothing but passing your number along.

Also, for that 20 dollars that I give him for the refferal is my way of saying thanks for the potential thousands of dollars in refferals from my new customer .:)

[Henry B. 4]

I've got a program I call refer a friend.. for each client someone refers me they recieve $5 on their account they can use towards any service they want. It's not much but some of my clients line up entire complex jobs for me..lol They also get special additional gifts that I don't advertise on my site like tickets to sporting events and similiar things.

[Jon 533]

Just a friendly word of advice, drop "kickback" from your vocabulary as kickbacks are illegal.

Henry yes not much, in fact makes you look rather cheap, up the ante to $20 bucks at least.

[Celeste 341]

We give all residential customers at least 5 business cards and write their name on the back. For every job we get from a card that they hand out, we give them $25 off of their next job from us.

[Henry B. 4]

Hey John,

I agree $5 is cheap but I've done higher amounts in the past and this one seems to work much better. I could give $50 for each referral but then people start thinking they can get me to discount my work. The more free things you give away the more people want to negotiate on your prices. I had one client tell me $5 wasnt much and I told him if I give away much more I'd have to raise prices. You also have to realize that I'm not really looking for new clients or word of mouth advertising. I've got plently of clients allready I'm just trying to give them something back. The people that refer us to more than 5 clients usually get a free service or something special. I just don't advertise it because I would rather see what people do on their own.

I have about 10,198 cleints, if each of them referred me and I gave them $20 bucks I could double the size of my customers. I really don't want to do that in fact, I'm cutting out some of my clients slowly to slow down the work load.

[bkwelker 64]

I clean homes (I do high-end residential only)for several people who own restuarants. Every now and then instead of a check I'll ask them for the equivalent in $25.00 gift certificates. When I get a referral, I send the referring person a gift certificate and a thank you card after the new job is done. Of course, they all call to thank me and let me know I didn't have to do that, etc., etc. which always gives me an opportunity to further cement what is obviously an already excellent relationship.

Everybody wins.

The restaurant owner gets a dozen or more opportunites for new customers AND pays less to have his own house done,

The referring person is encouraged to make even more referrals, not because of the gift certificate, but by what it represents, as they are left with no doubt about how I feel about their value to me and my business, and that always makes a person feel good,

The referree is connected with someone they can trust on their property and in their home, without having to wade through a batch of less desirable "professionals",

and I get pre-qualified prospects who don't act as though I am insane for charging more than $75.00. :-)

Works for me.

[Jon 533]

Point made Henry.

Hey Brian do you pay travel time? seeing you don't clean the flat work at those restaurants I have rig, will travel!

[EmpirePW 14]

Kickbacks? Sounds like somebody's going for a very lucrative government contract and dealing with a shady congressman.

I don't do much residential work because there are a lot of lowballers around here doing them for extra money and I am trying to setup a legitimate type business. When I do residential work though I have my "Referal-Bonus-Back program". The way I do it is after I have done a job for you for say $200 if you send me 3 jobs of equal or greater value I will give you 25% of your money back. Send me another 3 jobs and get another 25% back. 3 jobs and 3 jobs until all your money is refunded and you got your house cleaned for free. but I got $2400 in new work and 12 more people trying to get their money back.

[CLASSICPW 14]

I came up with a crazy idea, but it has certain kinks that I haven't worked out. In the month of June I would offer a referral program that would stretch throughout the season until November. For each JOB that they referred over to me they would have $30 knocked off their bill. So if their job was $671.00 in early June, they would not have to pay me until I billed them for their balance in November. If they referred 3 jobs over that would be $90 off their bill. This would give them the whole summer to work for me and save themselves money. 2 major kinks: people have money in spring from taxes, people are tight in the late fall for the holidays. People might have a hard time paying the bill in November versus June. On the up side it would provide a nice chunk of change to get me through the winter. I haven't used it yet, but I might experiment with a few customers next year.