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Word of mouth is still the number one way to get customers. This is the latest finding of a survey conducted by Verizon in conjunction with Small Business Trends. According to the survey, 85% of the small businesses state customers learn about them through word of mouth. Search engines come in a distant second at 59%, followed by social media at 33% ad email marketing at %29%.

Small businesses are all about the personalized approach. It’s not about casting a wide net, but rather about connecting with a select number of customers, enlisting their trust and loyalty, and having that positive impression spill over among their circle of friends and colleagues.

Small Business Trends (smallbiztrends.com) offers the following four steps you can take to increase and leverage word of mouth about your product or service:

1. Check your business in Google and Bing at least once a month.

Even if search engines weren’t the No.2 way customers have of learning about a small business, keep in mind that word of mouth spreads online as well as offline today. Your customers are online today, and even if you run a local brick-and-mortar business, chances are they check you out online. You can fix many negative impressions, such as customer complaints or negative reviews. But first you have to know about them — and not be blindsided or ignore them because they’re too painful to confront. Once you know about them, you can contact the customer, leave unemotional explanations if the information looks incorrect, or seek out more positive reviews to convey a more balanced impression.

2. Conduct customer surveys to learn what your customers REALLY think.

The Net Promoter system asks on a scale of one to 10, “How likely is it that you’d recommend us to your friends and colleagues?” The ones who are very positive are called Promoters. The ones who are negative are called Detractors. Net them out, and you have a Net Promoter score. Today, with online survey tools (some of which are integrated with the software that manages your house email list), it’s not hard to discover and keep track of your Net Promoter score. Increasing your Net Promoter score gives you something for your team to rally around and set improvement goals. Start measuring and analyzing. Discover what is making Detractors out of some and Promoters out of others. You want to understand what your customers value so much that they are wildly enthusiastic about your business.

3. Communicate and reinforce to employees the value of raving fans.

If you spend a lot of time focusing on solving negative complaints, you may be inadvertently sending a signal that customer service only matters when there’s a complaint. Instead, you should be sending signals to get ahead of the curve. Customer service matters before someone gets upset, when you have the opportunity to turn someone into that raving fan of your company. Spend some time explaining to employees where most new customers come from and how valuable it is to have existing customers who love your company. Don’t assume that your employees actually pick up on that. Show your appreciation publicly when they go “above and beyond” to delight customers. Your employees at all levels need to hear the message repeatedly. They need to believe that YOU believe it.

4. Create easy ways for customers to share word of mouth.

This is where traditional marketing and advertising can support and amplify customer word-of-mouth. Consciously develop initiatives that get happy customers talking. Make it easy for them to share their positive impressions. Also, make it easy for existing customers to refer their friends, family and colleagues. Some tactics that can help are: 1) specifically ask for testimonials; 2) provide referrals cards; 3) offer refer a friends links on newsletters; and 4) suggest easy ways to leave testimonials.For instance, invite a customer on to a live Google Hangout or Skype call, and video a brief testimonial. Or ask them to leave a brief star review on your Facebook Page or Google+ Page.

See also more tips on how to create word of mouth for your business at SmallBizTrends.com.

The Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) is an invite-only organization comprised of the world’s most promising young entrepreneurs. In partnership with Citi, YEC recently launched StartupCollective, a free virtual mentorship program that helps millions of entrepreneurs start and grow businesses. YEC polled its members to find out, “What’s one simple thing every startup founder should do this summer to improve their business?”

Here’s what they had do say:

Take a Customer to Lunch

“Find a nice day in the summer to invite your best customer out for lunch. Take the time to speak with him and hear his perspective on how your partnership is working. The relaxed setting will provide a great opportunity to learn what is working well, as well as what can be improved in the future.”

Charles Bogoian
Kenai Sports, LLC

Check on Your Financial Health

“Doing a mid-year forecast or budget this summer might not be simple, but it’s essential. Maybe you did a budget in January. Summer is the time to check back in. Where are you at the mid-year point? Have your objectives shifted? Where is your revenue? Are you hitting your milestones? Asking these important questions and setting down your projections will set you up for the rest of the year.”

David Ehrenberg
Early Growth Financial Services

Offer More Vacation Time

“Summer is the perfect time to launch an initiative such as unlimited vacation time. It will improve morale, your employees will perform at a higher level, and as long as it’s managed correctly, it can significantly improve business operations.”

Andrew Schrage

Money Crashers Personal Finance

Unplug for a Week

“Whether you take a vacation or simply turn off your phone and laptop for a week, you’ll find out exactly how well the business runs without you. If things fall apart, then you know where to devote your time — perhaps to creating systems and building a team to maintain the business when you’re gone. The next time you have a trip, family emergency or get sick, you’ll be thankful you took the time.”

Kelly Azevedo
She’s Got Systems

Systemize the Operations

“Most companies slow down over the summer. I see this as a great opportunity to build business processes into the company so you’re more efficient and can scale faster. For example, we have a huge wiki that we’ve built over the years that contains every process within our business. We’re planning a large scale audit of that wiki to cut out redundancies and make directions clearer.”

Liam Martin
Staff.com

Encourage Time off for Employees

“Let your employees take vacations. People will come back refreshed and ready for the next challenge. We recently enacted an unlimited vacation policy in the hopes of encouraging personal responsibility and a better ‘work hard, play hard’ culture. “

Alex Lorton
Cater2.me

Audit Financial Statements

“Understanding the income and expenses that make up the business will help startup founders identify what points of their business need attention. Auditing financial statements is one way to better understand these processes.”

Brett Farmiloe
Markitors

Get in Shape

“Get in the best shape of your life. Why not? The minute you get serious about your health, everything else improves. Use the summer as a motivational time to challenge yourself, and set an awesome health and fitness example for the rest of your team.”

Derek Flanzraich
Greatist

Schedule a Retreat

“Summer is a great time to take your team (or just yourself) and plan for the rest of the year. It is ideal to be off-site and even better if you don’t allow technology — or go to a place where it doesn’t work well. I encourage you to work with an outside facilitator to ensure that your entire team can participate. You’ll see the payoff immediately in team cohesion and focus.”

Suzanne Smith
Social Impact Architects