The following article was featured in our October edition of The Perceptionist. Howard Partridge is also a feature link here on our Blogroll.

Famous for getting his start as a carpet cleaner, Howard Partridge has helped 100’s of different types of small business owners succeed through his marketing techniques. These tools can help any small business owner capture more sales which is why Perceptionist Inc. is proud to present Howard Partridge as this month’s featured author.

11 Reasons Referral Marketing is More Powerful than Advertising

Referral Marketing is the process of building a network of sources that are in a position to refer multiple clients to you. It takes the same amount of time, money and energy to market to a “source” that has an unlimited supply of customers as it does an individual prospect. Therefore referral marketing is much more powerful than advertising. In fact, my company was built on referrals. We bring in over $50,000.00 per month in new business just from referrals!

There are 11 important reasons that Referral Marketing is so powerful.

1. The “network” is unlimited - A referral source sends you a client. If you have a referral program, you can turn that person into an active referral source as well. As each referral sends their friends, neighbors, clients, and co-workers, the growth is absolutely endless. You can literally get to a point where you have to do absolutely nothing other than make sure that your referral sources and clients are happy. But you have to have the right referral program. All referral programs are NOT created equal.

2. You get a steady stream of NEW customers - Many times when you place an ad (if it works), you get all the calls at the same time. With referral marketing, you get a steady stream of new clients.

3. Higher Quality Clients – A KIA customer is not going to call a carpet retailer or Interior Designer to find a quality cleaning company. They will call the 3 cheapest companies in the yellow pages. Mercedes clients buy almost exclusively through referrals. They want the best, so they call their “consultant” to find out who to choose.

4. You get pre-qualified clients – By educating your referral sources, including filling them in on your pricing structures, your prospects will be pre-qualified before they ever come to you.

5. People Trust Referrals – Everyone that is in business has received referrals from time to time. Wouldn’t you agree that referrals already have a level of trust for you? You also have more trust for them. This makes for a much better business relationship. They are also much less price conscious.

6. Reduces Competition – With this process you are not jockeying for the best zip code in the coupon mailer, or competing with the other ads in the yellow pages. Your biggest competition is you. Will you invest in a referral program? Will you take the time to make the calls? It is all up to you.

7. Low Cost – Some materials and time is all that is required. If you offer a referral fee (which I highly recommend), the cost is still extremely low compared to advertising.

8. High Returns – The returns can potentially be huge. In my experience, any overall advertising program in the carpet cleaning industry that gets a consistent 4 to 1 return would be doing extremely well. In other words, if you invested $1000.00 in advertising, you would get $4000.00 in return. Anyone would be happy with that return across the board. With referral marketing, if you pay a 10% referral fee and everyone cashed in on it, you would have a 10 to 1 return. My referral program produces a 20 to 1 return.

9. Returns Guaranteed – With a referral fee, you don’t pay it until after the job is done and the invoice is paid. With traditional advertising, you put your money on the line and hope for a return.

10. Small Time Investment – The time investment is not that burdensome either. I built my referral sources in between jobs mostly. What is required is a different mindset. You must now create a new lifestyle…a lifestyle that includes a regular, systematic effort to call on potential referral sources.

11. Exponential Multiplication - I will suggest to you that if you were to invest just a few minutes per day calling on a set of referral sources – people who have an unlimited supply of clients for you – that you could potentially increase your business over $10,000.00 per month in new business in 6 months.

Would you agree that if you had a great referral program, and you really worked it for 30 days that you could get $1500.00 in referrals? Sure you could. What I discovered about referral sources is that they repeat their habit. In other words, they will likely send you another $1500.00 next month. And of course you will be generating new referral sources that add a new $1500.00 each month. If you follow the math of the new referral sources and the recurring referral sources, in 6 months you would be generating over $10,800.00 in new business each and every month! I have done it. And so have many other carpet cleaners that have my program.

Get the FAST TRACK Referral Marketing System TODAY!

About the author: Howard Partridge built his carpet cleaning business from the trunk of his car to over $2.5 million per year. He has helped over 4000 small business owners from around the world dramatically improve their businesses. For a FREE Report that reveals how to get the highest prices for your service, and to get Howard’s FREE Business Building Tip of the Week, visit www.HowardPartridge.com

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Perceptionist is proud to be a member of the Association of Residential Cleaning Services International (ARCSI). In addition to membership, we are sponsoring the upcoming 2007 Annual Convention as a vendor. The convention is in conjunction with the ISSA/Interclean in Orlando, Florida from October 22nd through the 26th. Our own Tiger Downey will be featured in an Educational Seminar: Who is answering your phone? Your competition? on the 23rd from 9-9:45AM. Perceptionist, Inc. will also be showcased on the trade show floor at Booth #3292. If you are attending the convention stop by our booth or feel free to comment here about what your plans are for this exciting event! See you there!

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The following article was featured in our September edition of The Perceptionist. The statistical results pertain to maid services but the service can be applied to all Perceptionist customers.

How did your industry stand up against our Internet Inquiry Lead Test?

· Only 14% of maid services responded by phone or email within 1 hour of receiving an internet inquiry

· Only 40% responded within 24 hours!!

Your website has a “Contact Us” page or an internet inquiry box for good reason. But are you using it to your advantage? Perceptionist performed an internet lead test on the maid services industry and the results were less than impressive. We understand the predicament: you’ve got things to take care of that fall higher on the priority list. The customers you already have need your attention. You have to manage your employees to do the best job possible. New supplies need to be ordered… etc. As owner of a business, you’re too busy to sit around and wait for emails to respond to. But what would happen if you responded to these customers more quickly?

When we ran our response test we measured efficiency with two different classifications: Professional and Exceptional. Professional response would answer inquiries within 24 hours, 100% of the time, as well as make a minimum of three attempts over three days. Exceptional response would make an answer attempt within less than one hour of the inquiry and make a minimum of eight attempts over three days. Both of these classifications would make both phone and email attempts. So how did your industry do? 40% responded within 24 hours but only 11% made both phone call and email attempts. The results also averaged only 1 attempt over 7 days. Additionally, only 14% responded within 1 hour. So what does this mean in terms of Professional and Exceptional? A whole 0% of the results qualified as Exceptional and a mere 5% of the results qualified as Professional. This is an opportunity to gain more customers without spending a ton of money and you need to take advantage of it.

So what can you do to increase response time for internet inquiries? Let Perceptionist take care of it. When you have your internet inquiries forwarded to Perceptionist your business will benefit from increased customer satisfaction and more scheduled appointments. The customer won’t have time to continue surfing the web for your competition. When we receive the internet inquiry for your business, a highly trained Perceptionist will be able to respond to the customer within a quick and timely manner, always achieving Professional response rates. The more quickly we respond, the more likely it is that we will schedule an appointment. We will provide the same great service by offering pricing and service information.

In addition to capturing more sales, Perceptionist Outbound Internet Leads enables you to more effectively measure your internet advertising. We are able to provide you with the amount of inquiries received, the outcomes, our response times, and lead sources. Since Perceptionist schedules the appointment, we can follow that appointment all the way back to how the customer found you. Our tracking staff can put a code on each web-based advertisement that you have placed in order to see where the leads are coming from. The best part about Outbound Internet Leads is that the price is exactly the same as our regular scheduling. We only get paid for the appointments we schedule, so signing up for Outbound Internet Leads is risk-free.

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The following article was featured in the September edition of The Perceptionist.

You trust Perceptionist with your important customer calls but have you ever wondered who they are? We’d like to introduce you to our Quality Assurance Supervisor, Amy Robinson. Amy has been with the company since 2000, when the brand was first being established. She started as a Perceptionist, taking customer calls and scheduling appointments. Amy was then promoted to a Sales position where she helped small business owners understand how Perceptionist could help them grow. Recently, Amy has taken on the position of Quality Assurance Supervisor where she oversees all aspects of great Perceptionist customer service. The Quality Assurance Supervisor is responsible for training new hires and auditing calls.

So what’s she like behind the scenes? Born in Columbus, Ohio, Amy is married with 3 children. When she is not training future Perceptionists, Amy is busy spending time with her family and chasing after the kids. She always knew she would be a mom but she never expected to have kids with such spunky personalities. Amy’s son Kea is 10 and he loves sports. Like most kids his age, he hopes to someday be an NFL star. Her son Tre, age 3, is currently driving Amy crazy with the leftovers from his “Terrible Two’s.” Amy’s daughter, Kali, is just 1 year old but her personality is much bigger than her age. She loves being a girly-girl but she still knows how to hold her own and hang with the boys.

When Amy does find some free time, like most women she enjoys shopping, working out, doing hair and make-up, and reading the latest Cosmo. What you may be surprised to know is that she has that same spunk that her children do. Amy loves motorcycles! She dreams of someday creating her own women’s motorcycle club called “Breeze” and she even has the pipe burns to prove it. Don’t worry: Our own activations coordinator, Loyce, lectures her daily on what to wear while on the bike. In addition to hopping on the chopper, Amy also enjoys watching football with her husband and going to church.

Amy understands that her job is essential to providing great customer service for your business. Training new hires to represent the company affects not only Perceptionist, but your business as well. That’s why Amy’s favorite aspect of the job is the fact that she is creating the foundation for what we do and who we are. Auditing calls is important as well. Amy is constantly monitoring calls to be sure that we get things right. She is always looking for ways we can change to assure you quality service every time.

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The following article was featured in our August edition of The Perceptionist. The statistical results pertain to carpet cleaners but the service can be applied to all Perceptionist customers. 

· 41 extra appointments were booked when Perceptionist performed a Survey Callback with previous customers

· These results are for only ONE carpet cleaning service in only 2 months!

· What are YOU doing to stop customers from shopping?

Did you know that a repurchase from an existing customer costs 80-85% LESS than a purchase from a new customer? Similarly, if your company increases their retention rate by 2% it is the equivalent of cutting your operating expenses by 10%. Are you doing enough to keep the customers you have? Even better, what if you could gather vital, customer information while scheduling an appointment at the same time? Perceptionist offers a Survey Callback Option that can do this for you.

With the Survey Callback Option, Perceptionist calls your previous customers and conducts a short survey. A Perceptionist will ask the customer to rate their service and the cleaning crew, which gives you valuable feedback on your crew’s technical and personal abilities. More importantly, you receive information on the interest of your customer. Once the survey is completed, we are able to ask the customer if they might be interested in scheduling another appointment. If they decline an appointment, we are able to ask the customer if we can call them back in the future at a time when they might be interested in scheduling another clean.

The customer is essentially inviting us to call back, which means they are highly likely to schedule an appointment at that time. It’s a reminder to your customer that it’s time to clean the carpets and this saves your business, and the customer, time. The real value of allowing Perceptionist to use Survey Callbacks is not just the extra appointments you will book, but the customers you will keep.

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The following article was featured in our August edition of The Perceptionist and pertains only to maid services.

· 15% of One-Time Clean customers became Regular Customers when Perceptionist conducted a One-Time Clean Callback survey

· These results are for only ONE maid service in only 4 months!

· What are YOU doing to stop customers from shopping?

Want to schedule more appointments and grow your customer exposure? Make the most of our service and sign up for One-Time Cleaning calls! We know why you’re hesitant: You think we don’t understand your cleaning schedule. But here’s the good news…We don’t have to! We are able to put in 24 to 48 hours of lead time to give you the flexibility to schedule exactly when the time is right for you. We have morning and afternoon time slots and once we schedule the appointment, you call and confirm an exact time with your customer. Approximately half of our locations are currently allowing us to schedule One-Time Cleans and they are able to stop these customers from shopping. But the real value isn’t just in scheduling OTC’s.

The real value in being able to schedule an OTC means you have the ability to reach that person and turn them into a regular customer. For this, Perceptionist offers a One-Time Clean Callback Option. 15% of One-Time Clean customers became regular customers when Perceptionist performed a callback survey. A Perceptionist will ask the customer to rate their service and the maids, which gives you valuable feedback on your crew’s technical and personal abilities. More importantly, you receive information on the interest of your customer. We will also ask if they would like to discuss becoming a regular cleaning customer and get pricing information. Perceptionist calls when the customer is still experiencing the benefits of their One-Time Clean. This means that when we call, they can’t think of anything but how much they loved having a clean home. This makes them more likely to become a regular customer.

Even if they decline regular customer status, we are able to ask them if we can call them back in an allotted amount of time to see if they might be interested in scheduling another clean. Because they have been enjoying the benefits of a clean home, they are more likely to say “call me in six months when I will be having a Christmas party” or “call me at the end of June so I can be ready for the 4^th of July.” This means that instead of being random shoppers, they regularly schedule their appointments with your business. They may only be “occasional regular” customers, but this stops your potential customers from shopping before they have a chance to try someone else. The real value of allowing Perceptionist to schedule OTC’s is not just the extra appointments you’ll book, but the regular service customer reputation you will build.

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The following article was featured in our August edition of The Perceptionist.

We want you to know that we appreciate your input. You’ve told us your thoughts on our billing systems and we listened. That’s why Perceptionist Inc. is proud to announce that we’re changing our billing system! Look for the new, improved version starting September 1.

Your invoices will still be emailed to you but your invoices will also be available in the Perceptionist Customer Center in a fully-integrated system which can be accessed by your customer center log-in. The new invoice will maintain the look and feel of the current customer center.

Now when you view your invoice you will see a more customer-centered system. Your summary invoice will include a hyperlink to the customer center where you can view the call details via a “drill down” interface. This means that you will be able to see every call invoiced with a simple click on the related summary line item. In addition to seeing your detailed call records, invoices will also include your call credits. Credits will show up as line items on the invoice associated with the originating call detail. This means that separate credit memos will no longer be issued so that all of your billing information is in one handy invoice. You will also be able to print your invoice for your convenience.

Finally, if you own multiple locations you will be able to see which calls were billed for certain locations as well as being able to see a full list of all calls, all customers, and all times via the “drill down” functionality. We’ve made these changes in response to you, our customer, in order to save you time and to make your experience with Perceptionist the best it can be.

As customers, you’ve had the chance to experience this change firsthand. So tell us what you think. How do you feel about the new billing system?

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Download Perceptionist White Paper

For general information about Perceptionist Inc. services, refer to the Perceptionist White Paper. This document provides a brief yet thorough description of Perceptionist, explains the benefits of using an overflow scheduling desk, and provides information on our customer center and unique Perceptionist features.

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Thank you for visiting our blog. We are excited to have a new way to connect with people and we will be posting all of our newsletters and documents here for easy download access. Also, look through the blogroll for useful links within the industry. Stay tuned for future updates!

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