Common courtesy...

Ok folks, just a little rant that may be on the minds of others as well. My website generates a lot of calls from outside my area as well as outside my expertise. As a courtesy I have referred these prospects to members of various "ADC forums, organizations or directories" and I KNOW that some of these have turned into jobs based on a call back from the customer. Guess what? Only one company has had the professional courtesy of saying "Thank you". Well, time is valuable and I will no longer spend MY time with the customer on hold while I search for someone in their area who may PROFIT from the referral. I have always thanked others for direct referrals and I think that everyone in this business should do so as well. 'Nuff said.

YES!!!!!

Rarely do I call and thank someone for a referral. I thank them by referring them in return. You may have been thanked and not even know it.

Common courtesy is definitely a rare comodity these days. I get about 80% of my referel's from the DNR and the rest from customers or other ADC guys. If someone calls me from an area I don't cover then I will refer them to someone in that area if possible. I don't expect anything back, that way I'm never disappointed. I understand where your coming from though.

Mike,

While I can empathize with the point of your post, everyone needs to remember that it is one thing for you to call/text/email a company and give them the referral without getting a thank you, but quite another to give the contact information to the prospect and having them call the referred company without ever hearing back.

Most of the time a referred customer calls, they either don't let me know who they have been referred from, give me the wrong individual that referred them, or they say they found me through my website or some other form of advertising. It isn't until months later when I'm talking with the individual that referred my services, that I find out they thought it was a referral from them. In today's information age, it's possible that the client did find me on their own, but ended up speaking with the referring company first. This makes it almost impossible to say "Thank You or at least let them know I've contacted them" to the referring company unless the company contacts me directly. Otherwise, I'm at the mercy of the prospect for sharing that information with me and even then based on my schedule I may forget to thank them or if the client is a PIA I may not want to thank them.

I've also had multiple times when I've given a referral to a prospect that "didn't know there were others that did this kind of work" only to hear that they already had the other company's number/contact information or wanted to know if they were the same company they already contacted (email or phone message or actually talked with).

One of the best ones was a referral to another company that they already had a quote from, but "couldn't find anyone" which is why they had called me. I found out about it when I asked the referred company if they had gotten a call or not.

Mike, if it makes you feel any better, we have done the same thing with the same results. Since, I am reasonably sure that some of

our many customers are referrals who never mention who referred them, I will still refer whenever possible. For some strange reason

I feel really good when I can refer a company to a customer that is out of our area, state, nation, ( and sometimes I think they

might even be from a distant planet ) I am sure I owe a lot of people "A Thank You" for referring us. Thanks for bringing this up.

Thanks to any of you that referred us and RF, I think you probably hit the nail on the head!

I guess my view is a little different than some. I always call and thank someone for their referral and sometimes I reward them with a restaurant gift card. I've referred some real "money makers" to some independents that really needed the work and thought I would at least get a quick thanks. I also call every customer that refers someone to me to thank them personally.

We have a group of company's on the conn. shoreline that sends work to each other. As RF stated it's enough to know we are looking out for our brothers just trying to make a living. Mike, you take it to the next level and there is nothing wrong with that for sure.