If you take care of your clients well, use good communication skills and ensure your company delivers great results, you are going to get referrals. Maintaining good communication with your client during the delivery of your products and services, allows you to ask for referrals at any time. Once your client gives you a referral, there is an expectation that you handle that referral with care. This referral is normally a friend of your client. Many times they are a close friend or an important business colleague. It is expected that you treat that referral with respect and manners. You are now entrusted by your client to handle their friend or colleague in a manner that validates the fact that they recommended you and your company. That means you must use good communication skills and good manners.
Here are eight major points to keep in when taking care of a client referral.

1. Do your homework on the referral.
2. Contact the referral immediately.
3. Use good manners when making the contact.
4. Establish trust and solid communication with the referral before moving forward to a Sales Appointment.
5. Keep your client regularly informed about the progress with the referral they have given.
6. Acknowledge your client for referring you their friend.
7. Ask for additional referrals from your client.
8. Take care of the new client you now have, ask for referrals and start the process again.

1. Doing your homework:

When first receiving the referral from your client, ask him all about the referral himself, their company, interests, history on how the client who referred them knows them and anything else you feel would help.  Ask the client why and how they feel you can help their referral exactly.   Then use the internet and any other sources to gain as much knowledge as you can about the referral. You need to have a very good understanding about the referral before you ever even talk with them.

2. Contact the referral immediately:

After you have done your homework, contact the referral. I can’t tell you the number of times, I have been consulting a company and been told that they don’t have enough “prospects”.  The first thing I look for is referrals that were never called.  This is very bad manners and will shut down the number of referrals you receive, so – contact the referrals immediately!

3. Use good manners when making the contact:

Remember that in the case of a referral, you represent yourself, your company, your client as well as your clients company.  That is a lot of people’s reputations that you are responsible for.  Good manners must be used at all times.

4. Establish trust and solid communication with the referral before moving forward to a Sales Appointment.

The first step in taking care of the referral is to establish solid communication and trust from the referral.  This not only makes the client feel cared for, it validates the Client for the referral that they have given you.  Ensure this step is accomplished prior to getting into your products or services.

5. Keep your client regularly informed about the progress with the referral they have given.

It is important to the client that the referral is well taken care of.  This means keeping the client informed of the progress. They want to know that it is going well and are usually willing to help  in the case that the referral is not progressing.  Such as the case where you are having trouble making contact, the client could easily resolve this by making a personal introduction.

6. Acknowledge your client for giving you the referral:

It is good manners to acknowledge those who contribute to your success, not to mention this action alone, can bring you more and more referrals. You should really develop some type of formal referrals program; this should be a continuous generation system so there is no shortage of referrals.

7. Ask for additional referrals from your client:

Having done all the work to ensure the referral is well taken care of, you are in a position to ask for additional referrals from the same client.  This is not only appropriate but expected and welcomed if you have taken care of the first referral very well!

8. Take care of the new client you now have, ask for referrals and start the process again.

Now that you have taken care of the referral well and have established them as a new client,  you ask for referrals from this new client as well.  The process then starts over with step 1 above.
In summary, take care of your clients and prospects well. Using effective communication, you will create relationships that last a lifetime.  This is a vital part of your success in any business or life, but especially in sales.
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