Referring new clients to current or past satisfied clients?

I wanted to ask, when freelance writers write and if the customers are satisfied how do they explain it to the prospective clients? From my own observations it seems that even the most happy clients rarely recommend me to other students, even if I offer some discount in return of a referral. Maybe they are afraid to tell their friends that they have been helped by a professional writer, or for some other reasons. What is your experience with that?

I simply refer my new clients to my previous or current satisfied client who are usually in their country; if not they can exchange a few emails and the like. To me, the most important thing is how you communicate (with the new client) at the initial level; that is, if you can really show them that you're a professional and honest writer, the client will not even ask for any references. There are a great many strategies to do so; none the less, the primary thing is that you MUST be honest inside rather than saying so.

Agreed. If you treat your clients well they will refer their friends as well. It pays to be honest in more ways than one.

Exactly, the rapport part is very essential in convincing a client that you can satisfactorily handle an assignment. But the most difficult thing is getting through to that one client,i have been trying it for a while, still waiting for a breakthrough. Any pointers???

Sometimes I find that clients play with the writers asking different quotes but don't give a single work

While I disagree with testimonials in this instance because of how it can be faked by having the writer actually write his own testimonial, I know the value of a referral which is why I used to encourage my previous clients to refer me to their friends, classmates, and relatives. In exchange for that, I would give the client one free 250 word essay when he had an assignment that called for it. It worked pretty well for me and I knew that the students coming to me where those who were impressed by the work that I previously did for the person who referred me. This was the cycle that I used to promote my writing services, even though I did not have a website to refer the clients to. It turns out, the clients were more interested in the assured quality of work being delivered rather than the testimonials from people they did not know nor whose opinion they could care nothing about. The referral cycle for me, functioned in this manner until I decided to leave the academic writing field a few years back.

Personal referrals based on verbal testimonies to friends and classmates, the type not published on the web is actually the best way to network in this line of business as far as I am concerned.

Networking through referrals also ensures that the writer and client will have a pleasant working experience as a friendly manner of doing business can be achieved.

By having a common circle of friends / clients, the writer tends to gain the attention of more students in one particular class, which makes the work much easier for him as he can just research once and spread out the information through various orders.

I don't believe in encouraging word of mouth advertising, which is what a testimonial is, through a free writing offer though.

To me, this practice could devalue the writer's skills because, if you write one free paper for one client, you will have to do it for all your clients. Which means, the writer can lose income because he has to write successive free papers.

Nope. I don't think that is a good idea at all.

As @WriteReview said, the majority of client referrals are going to be verbal. The majority of clients are simply not going to review an academic writing service. That's one way we know the majority of all reviews are fake. No one wants to be publicly associated with essay companies. I get it, and I'm fine with that. Why? If you provide quality services (also meeting deadlines), that customer will eventually tell his/her friend/s, who will reach out when they need help. I'm also in agreement with @WriteReview on "free papers" as an incentive. I have neither the time nor inclination to provide free writing. I might offer a small discount to a new customer, but even then it depends on the extent of the work and other factors.

While I've had dozens of referrals over the years, that number is definitely not proportionate to the number of satisfied clients who've used me for months or years. If only 10% of my satisfied clients had referred friends to me, I'd have had hundreds of referrals instead of just dozens. My guess is that they don't want to admit to anybody that they didn't write those projects, both for self-preservation (in case those friendships change) as well as because they take some pride in claiming to have written the work even if they know they didn't actually write it. (Clients don't go home and show their parents their A papers and admit to having purchased them; they display them proudly as though they wrote every word even if the only thing they contributed was the cover page.)

I find this to be true as well. I wish that I had more referrals from past clients, but having repeat customers is sufficient enough for me to sustain my work in the long-run. It's difficult to get students to openly admit that they have sought your service, especially because there's a lot of pessimistic opinion regarding the usage of essay writing services (regardless of the intention of the use, of course). At the end of the day, it's useful to have clients who still trust you to produce their work for them.

Here's a weird phenomenon that I've experienced a few dozen times in this realm: I've received an email from someone saying that he or she was "referred by a friend" who used me. In my response, I ask who the friend was and, almost invariably, they totally ignore the question as though I never asked it, which is something I really can't stand, in general, because I always answer all questions asked of me in emails. (Actually, I feel the same way about forum conversations.) Anyway, I'll ask again and they either ignore the question again or they never respond to my email again at all. Other times, they'll provide a name that I don't recognize and when I ask for that person's email (just to figure out who it is), they respond that they "don't know" their friend's email. Maybe they think I won't consider their projects without a "referral" or something (which is really silly). The only reason I even ask is that they mention it initially; but it's always weird to me (and annoying) not to get a straight answer to such a simple and obvious question.

This is particularly interesting to me. I've never personally had exposure to these types of clients. It could rather be that some students could have assumptions that stating these things would make writers take the job seriously. Sounds quite out of the place, but it could be a possibility.

Lately, I've had a string of much more normal exchanges in which they've simply responded to my question by telling me exactly who referred them the first time I asked. Whatever the reason, I hope it continues.

I've been luck enough to have a regular slew of referred clients. I never offer a discount or any type of promotional service. I guess I am lucky that way. The clients I have had are so satisfied with the work I provide that they don't hesitate to recommend my services to their friends, family members (can you believe my luck?), and classmates. I guess the referral comes only if the client is truly satisfied with your work and, you have proven to be able to vary your writing style enough from one client to the next (referred) client so that there is no suspicion that the same person wrote the paper. That is normally where the worry comes in for most students and that is what usually prevents them from referring their writer to others, no matter how satisfied they are with the work and how convinced they are that the writer can help someone else out of a tight spot.