How Word of Mouth Referrals can hurt Your Business
Did you know that 45% of consumers who get referrals from family/friends also research lawyers online1?
While this statistic above is geared towards law firms, I have no reason to believe that this is any less true for accounting and engineering firms as well as other businesses.
Many businesses rely on word of mouth referrals but with approximately 45% performing secondary research online, this means that your website needs to make an amazing impression to back up what someone has said about your business. If not, it could cost you a valuable business opportunity.
So that begs the question, have you thought about the quality of your website lately? Have you found yourself saying that your website is “good enough”? And do you honestly think that your prospective customers will think the same thing?
Chances are you didn’t earn that word of mouth referral because your products or services are good enough. To give yourself the best chance of being able to talk to and earn the business of this new referral your website needs to give your referral a reason to contact you and having a website that is old, slow, not mobile friendly and difficult to use could cost you that opportunity.