Does Your Cleaning Business NEED References?

Does your cleaning business need references?

Short and sweet answer?

Yes you do, or at least, you’ll WANT them – and sooner rather than later.

And what exactly is a reference?

Well, it’s a customer that’s so satisfied with you and your cleaning, they’re willing to inconvenience themselves – to help you grow!

What do I mean?

Well, let’s think about it.

Customers of yours, who agree to be listed as a reference of yours, are saying they’re willing to ‘take calls’ during their busy work day to answer questions about you and your cleaning company.

Now, that’s commitment. That’s loyalty.

Written testimonials are great and you need to collect and exhibit them to ‘prove’ to your prospective clients your cleaning business’ ability to deliver on your promises of service.

But ‘LIVE’ references are even more powerful.

They say to the prospect, “this cleaning company has a number of clients so happy with their service, they’re willing – even glad, to tell about their positive experience in dealing with you!

Don’t panic. You don’t need 50.

But you do want to

as quickly as you can get enough, so you don’t have an ‘avalanche’ of calls coming down on just one,unsuspecting person who agreed to act as a reference for you…

NOT knowing they were the ONLY one!

One is better than none but you do want to get oh, let’s say at least three or four, as soon as you can – and eventually have six to eight or more.

That many sends a powerful message!

Some companies have so many, they’re able to customize the list they include with their proposal to match the kind of building their bidding on – i.e. bank references if they’re bidding on banks etc..

But you only need one to start.

And then you need to add another.

And that’s how you do it.

And it’s important enough to spend some time working on. You want to be proactive in asking some of your satisfied customers if they’d be willing to act as a reference for you.

People won’t generally call you out of the blue and ask, “Hey, I was just thinking about you. You clean my office so well, I was thinking you might need a reference and wondered if you’d like to use me?”

I suppose it’s happened -but not very often I’m sure.

It doesn’t make your customers inconsiderate for not offering without being asked- not at all.

It’s like a lot of things. If it is to be – it’s up to me!

That’s right. You need to step up and ask.

Customers aren’t mind readers.

But if you do step up and ask, I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised how many of them will be willing to help you out.

And when they do agree to be on your list of references – you’ll have a real asset.

Remember: The same thing we said about testimonials applies for references to:

‘What others say about your cleaning business is more important than what you say about your cleaning business!’

Discover the Guru in YOU!

Dan