Best Practices for Customers in Your Referral Program

Make referring as easy as possible

There are different available channels for referral programs, make sure that yours supports as much as possible like social media, emails, mobiles and even in person. A lot of programs can’t track offline referrals and most referrals are done in person when friends are having normal conversations. It’s really ideal to give your referrer a lot of ways to refer people and get credited for every referral they make.

Make your service standards clear and defined

A referral simply happens just the way you offered your products to the customer, your referrer does it similar to the way you did to them. So for them to successfully offer it and for them to remember it, you have to make sure what you offer is memorable. There are famous lines for that like “Not good enough? Money back”,” Money back guarantee” and a lot more. The more catchy but simple it is the more chances for your referrer to remember it and easily share it.

Make use of your CRM to find your most valuable customers

There’s a reason why they are the most valuable ones and that makes them more likely to be happy to share about your products and receive incentives from it. So make sure to use your CRM to know who they are, start building a relationship with them and ask for referrals in exchange for incentives.

Engage with your networks comfortably

Always make sure that you don’t become or look to pushy even to your valuable customers because that would not look good for your brand. There are different type of referrers that would join your program, some of them would be more than willing to post your referral code everywhere and share it to everyone they could share it to, while there are some who’d rather share it to the people they are sure would be interested. Allow them to do whatever they want to do, also, let them know that there’s no pressure and expectations.

Ask after the checkout process

When requesting for a referral it should always be done at the right time. And a common good place to do it is the end of the checkout process. Putting it on the end of the referral process will assure you that it will not distract them from converting. And since your customer just successfully converted, there’s a huge possibility that what he feels towards you is positivity and excitement. You can take advantage of their excitement to invite their friends.

Make it easier for them with auto-fill and other integrations you can provide

Some people are either just lazy in nature while some are really busy. Either way it’s none of your business and they would appreciate it if you make things easier and faster for them. Auto-fill forms can help them get over the details as quickly as possible, integrating your referral platform to their social networks while allowing them to choose who they want to refer would also make things easier. 

Disguise your referral program as a questionnaire

Are you one of those who hate to look even the bit pushy? Don’t worry because it doesn’t always have to be a referral request. You can always hide it in a way that it’s in a questionnaire. It could go with questions like “Are you likely to tell your friends about us?” “Are there any chance that you would share us to your friends?”. It doesn’t look like you’re asking a favor anymore; it looks more like asking for their opinion. And doing it that way make them think about their experience with you and your worth to them. You can then follow up with a referral form with just needing their friends email address to make everything easy if they answer yes to your questions.

Tailor the referral language to make it your own

It’s a great idea if you provide a blurb about your product but giving your referrer the ability to customize what they share on their socials is also an amazing way for them to put in their testimonial and assure their friend that it isn’t something automated and your customer chose to share it on their own. Statistics show that more people buy because of recommendations from friends and making your referral program customizable will give you a personalized recommendation from a happy customer.

Add a referral note to your products

It’s given that you really appreciate your referrals, but your customers don’t normally see or know it. Making sure that they are aware is a good way to strengthen the relationship. The moment your customers receive their purchase is the moment when they are very excited, and their excitement means they are in a good mood. So putting a small referral note on their product could encourage them to let their friends know.

Give your referrer rewards or incentives

To make your customers feel more appreciated, make sure to reward their effort with discounts on products in the future, gift cards, or even cash when their referred friend converts. When you give them their incentives make sure that it’s as soon as possible. 

Give the referred person incentives

Great friends share great opportunities, so if you give both the referrer and referred incentives the more likely will your customers invite their friends. This also works great for people who are ashamed of referring something because they’ll get something from it, this way they both get something. 

Be transparent with incentives

It’s really up to you if you be transparent but it’s really more ideal to let your customers know what they will receive and what their friend will receive. One way to earn people’s trust is by making sure that the guidelines are as clear as day.

Set up an official referral program

A referral program shows your customers all the statistics they have to know and the progress that they are making.  One amazing platform to set up a referral program is on OMNISTAR, they give people an easy way to set up a program and see their statistics as clearly as possible.

How to set up a referral program with Omnistar. 

With Omnistar Referral Software, the moment you sign in you see your dashboard that holds important statistics and recent sales and leads. On le left side you can also see buttons that could take you where you need to be.

When you decide to set up your referral program, all you’ll have to do is click on setup from the left side and it will redirect you to a page to start creating a new program or editing an old one.

So as you can see from the picture above, just click on create/edit referral program. Then click on +Add.

Next, type in all the details asked from you. Make sure to make your referral program unique so you don’t get confused when you add another new one.

Next step, you can choose whether a referral link would redirect to your website or show a coupon. 

When you’re done, a green tiny note would appear stating that your referral program was successfully created.

Opportunities strike once so be where the opportunities are

Statistics show that word of mouth is in almost every type of marketing strategy but is found more in referral marketing. In referral marketing, word of mouth is like its core whether it be over the phone or in person. With that being said, you should be able to give your customers the ability to refer via mobile.

Give your referrer the ability to give feedback

It’s also important to know what your customers think about your referral program. Basically they are the ones using your referral program so asking them what they honestly think about it, or what changes could be done to improve it would be a good idea. Make sure that they know you value the information they give you and think about what they tell you because that could make things better for both your referrer and your brand. Also to encourage them to share their ideas you can give them incentives.

Appreciating them

When people refer someone to you, they’re actually doing you a favor. And one way to make them feel appreciated is by hearing back from you when there referred person converts. So whenever you get the chance, try to get back to them at ties to show a little appreciation. If you already have a lot of customers, make use of other systems to send out automated messages. 

Don’t be afraid to ask for more opportunities

Make your customers aware that you can engage even outside the referral program, let them know and even remind them every month about searching for brand ambassadors and influencers. Referral programs could reach further when given a chance to do so, so make sure that they know you are open for it.

Don’t be shy, follow up

It’s normal to get reminders on a lot of different things like meetings, appointments, and even abandoned shopping carts, so it would be okay to follow up on your referrers once in awhile. Some people might have signed up but got busy about something and forgot all about it. Just let them know that your referral program is still running. Make sure to not make it feel intruding, you can simply say “I hope you are enjoying our referral program”, basically it doesn’t need to seem like a reminder but a promotion of your referral program.

See what your competition is doing

Once in awhile it could help to do a bit of detective work. You might have actually checked their products and how the competition is between the two of you but you might have not considered checking out on their referral program. You can use it to craft your referral program by checking what you like about it and what you don’t. If it’s working for them it could also work for you but make sure to still personalize it as much as possible. A lot of referral programs become more successful from learning from their competitors.

Monitor & optimize.

When your program is finally running it’s not the end of your duties. It’s the time when you have to watch over it to see what’s working for your brand and what isn’t. it’s also the time to improve and improve all the things that has to be optimized in order to give your brand better results. Your referral programs KPI should align with your business needs and your referral programs lifecycle in order for you to achieve success.

Remember to keep it fun

Referral contests exists and they can make things more fun for you and your customers. You can give away prizes for different contests like getting the most referrals in a month or tying up your contests to different holidays. You can also try a point system when it comes to rewarding referrers as they submit their referrals and as their referred person converts you can give them more points.

Conclusion

There are a lot of different practices that could bring in the fun and encourage your customers to join and stay in your referral program. But make sure that you start by making it as easy as possible for them to refer a friend. A lot of your customers that are happy with your products would be willing to share what you offer to people they know but not all of them have the time to do it so making it easy and fast would make it possible for them. Also remember to remind your referral users that you still exist because most of the time when people get caught up with something they’ll need a little reminder. Just make sure that you don’t sound desperate when reminding them, make it seem like you’re asking about how they feel about the program. Remember your referrers are doing you a favor so always make sure that you show them your appreciation.

2 Response to "Best Practices for Customers in Your Referral Program"

  1. Comment From Victor Buse

    It is also very key that you get as much feedback from your advocates as possible. Find out how you can motivate them to promote well.



  2. Comment From Charles Randolph

    I have often setup end of year contests to see which affiliates can send the most sales. I then give them a worthwhile bonus to motivate them.



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