In order to serve you better and improve my services I am creating and sending you a check-box survey in the next week. I hope that you can find time to answer a few questions and add a comment. Perhaps I can offer a new service that you need or more options. Your input will be very valuable and I welcome your suggestions. Again, thanks for your trust in Perugi Design and have a Healthy and Happy New Year!

She wants to know if I can lower the price, and so I ask her what her budget is. I explain to her that a website takes twenty or more hours to complete and $500 is not going to cover my time. But, perhaps, she would want to start out with an easy site by using a different software program, such as SquareSpace. That is a good way to test the waters for a new business. That was the end of it. Or so I thought.

Next thing I know, I get a one star review from her on Google. Unfortunately, there’s nothing you can do to erase unfair reviews on Google, but you can respond, which I did. I apologized if she thought I was rude, but the fact is, she was unwilling to accept my quote and I was trying to help her out with a good suggestion.

So, if this happens to you, here is what you do next. Email your favorite clients and ask them to review you on Google. You will be surprised at how supportive they are and how that one low mark can be outweighed by five star reports.

At our group, we pass mostly experience-based referrals. Experience referrals are from using a service and passing on your good experience about the service you received. They’re very important, but they’re not the whole story.

The article “Referral Marketing and Your Professional Services Brand” by Lee Frederiksen, PH.D, is from Hingemarketing.com. He states that another source of referrals, In fact, 82%, are from folks that have not worked with you directly. He says, “These referrals aren’t made in the dark”,

Chart by Hinge Marketing, 2016.

“Specifically they draw on your reputation and what referrers understand about your areas of expertise. These referrals are built on your brand.”

The chart at right reveals that brand-based referrals are driven by your expertise, via speaking engagements, blog posts and social media engagement. Many of my customers have heard me recommend blog posting as not only a way to show you are an expert in your field, but to attract inbound marketing to your website.

Professor Frederiksen goes on to say, “It’s common to hear service providers say that they can win new clients reliably…if they can just get a foot in the door to talk with them. In many cases, that may be true. But what if you never get the chance?”

And get this: Hinge research shows that over half of buyers—a full 51.9%—report they have ruled out firms without talking to them.

Potential clients usually receive the names of several providers.  And most buyers check out providers online, with a firm’s website being by far the most common source of information. But often the provider is ruled out after things go wrong from the website experience. Bad user experience is the main reason a website fails to win over your visitors and you lose them as customers.

I know that good website design improves user experience by answering the questions a visitor wants to know about your services. It provides good user flow. Or, if the website has poor quality content, is unimpressive or too focused on selling, you have wasted a good referral.

In the end, I learned that it takes BOTH a good referral AND a good website to win over a new customer.