9th February 2024

How did a burnt waffle maker inspire our referral programme?

Once upon a time, a client successfully referred a business to us. So we asked them what they’d like as a reward. They were in the process of selling their house and before a viewing they had put their waffle maker in the oven to free up space. You can see where we’re going with this – when they later turned on the oven for dinner, they melted their waffle maker in the process. The client couldn’t justify purchasing a new one, but when we offered them a gift of their choice… a waffle maker it was. 

Rather than having something prescriptive in place (like AirPods, or a voucher), we give our customers the chance to choose. On average this gift is £100, but it can be lower or higher depending on the value of the referral. We haven’t shouted about this programme in the past, but every time a client gets their chosen gift, it puts a smile on everyone’s face. It’s certainly more of a joy to phone up our clients, find out what they want (and perhaps some interesting stories in the process!), and give them something they’ll definitely like.

The waffle maker isn’t the only left-field response we’ve received. We purchased one client a golf bag after their fiancée banned them from buying anything in the lead up to their wedding – they got what they wanted without upsetting their soon-to-be wife! For another client, it was as simple as Amazon gift cards to reward their team with.

It’s not all about a present though. When clients refer others to us, we’ll always say thank you and recognise that they’ve put their own reputation on the line by introducing us. We recently shared our Feefo 2024 Platinum Trusted Service Award win, and we’re really proud of it as service is our biggest differentiator. 

To refer us, you just need to send an email introducing us to the relevant business. From there, it’s our job to back up that recommendation. We want to protect our relationships, and that means giving good honest service and advice to both prospective and current clients. In some cases, we’ve had to say, “actually, leasing isn’t the right option for your business.”

We get that referring people isn’t always easy, and we want this to be reciprocal – we’re just as keen to refer our clients to other businesses. So we’ll soon be equipping you with information on how to refer us when speaking to your network, and we’d love to hear how you’d like to be positioned too. In the meantime, if you know anyone who could benefit from our leasing solutions, please get in touch