WEST MIAMI
A referral calls once. What happens when it rings out
Mrs. Alonso on SW 16th Street gives your number to the family two doors down. They call on a Thursday afternoon. It rings out. They do not leave a message, because who does. They call the company on the truck parked across the street instead. Mrs. Alonso never hears about it, and neither do you. But the next time someone asks her, she hesitates.
A note on what this is. We have not measured referral rates in West Miami. This is how a referral call behaves, and why the cost of missing one is bigger than the job.
Why a referral calls once
A person who found you on Google is shopping and will try again. A person who got your number from a neighbor is not shopping; they are trusting. When the call rings out, the trust goes with it. They do not think "I will try later." They think "she said they were good, but nobody answered."
The part you never see
A missed referral call is a missed-call notification with an unfamiliar number. It looks like every other one. You cannot tell it was Mrs. Alonso's neighbor, and you cannot call it back with any idea why they called. So it sits.
THE REFERRAL CHAIN
What one inbox does to a referral
- The missed call gets a text within a minute, in both languages, asking what they need and who sent them.
- The reply lands on a thread with their name, their address and "referred by Mrs. Alonso" on the record.
- The tech sees the note on the job card. He mentions her at the door. The family tells her you did.
- Mrs. Alonso gets a short thank-you text after the job, if you turn that on. She keeps passing the number.
Sixty-year-old houses
West Miami work is repipes, panels, roofs, and full system replacements on houses built in the 1950s and 60s. The jobs are big and slow, and they come almost entirely from the neighbor who had it done last year. The whole business runs on the chain not breaking.
"Who sent you?" is a field on the record, not a question the tech has to remember. It is answered by the text, the form, or the voice agent on the first contact.
Questions we get asked about this
Does it text the neighbor who referred us?
Only if you turn it on and only with a short thank-you, once. It is off by default because not every referrer wants to hear from you.
What if the caller does not say who sent them?
The field stays empty. Some people will answer the text, some will tell the tech. It gets filled more often than you would guess.
Does the referral show in the reports?
Yes. Jobs by source, and "referral" is a source, with the referrer's name on each.
Related
Count the referrals you know about
How many of last month's jobs came from a neighbor? If you are not sure, book a 30-minute call. We set up the field that makes it a number.