While I admit there is 'risk' I personally have only had positive experience with 'friend referrals' .... one of my first clients referred me two of her friends as I was filling up and never had an issue ... but I have thankfully never had clients leave on sour notes so my first client moved to another city and the others stayed on, one had a child whose school was 1/2 days so they outgrew the program while the other stayed on for five years until both her children were in school full time. Last year I had another client refer a friend and than 4 months later she moved out of city too and the friend is still here with her children and now just referred me another friend to interview .... IMO word of mouth advertizing is the best form of advertizing there is!

IMO the fact remains that if a client leaves on 'poor terms' there is risk of other clients hearing about it and getting soured by the 'gossip' and following suit regardless if they were 'friends before hand' ... I know IME most of my clients end up forming relationships once starting here so they talk outside of daycare hours anyway so not much difference if they 'started' as friends or 'became' friends if something negative happened in my group ALL my clients would end up knowing about it and potentially creating huge conflict on me ... one of the reasons why I work so hard to make sure I have a positive match at the START of the relationship in order to avoid conflict as the relationship grows