Whether you're starting from scratch or replacing an existing referral program, selecting a technology provider to power it will save you time, effort, and dollars. The sections below describe the key criteria for choosing the best technology and the right partner.
Experience and strength of vision
When evaluating a technology provider, you're always looking for industry experience. It can also help to look for experience beyond your industry. For example, retailers benefit from a provider who also serves financial services brands. A richness of ideas from more nimble categories that cater to fast-changing consumer habits will help you keep up and stay modern.
Since your partnership is likely to be a long-term one, make sure your provider has a vision for the future and thoughts about how referral, advocacy, and customer engagement will evolve. You want to partner with a leader.
Security and compliance
Making sure your provider takes privacy and security as seriously as you do is paramount. Your vendor needs to demonstrate thorough and complete security, privacy, and operational policies and procedures. ISO 27001 certification is a plus. Make sure regulatory compliance is built into the provider's platform, including ADA, CAN-SPAM, CCPA, and GDPR.
Integration breadth
Consider your provider's preferred and alternative integration approaches, looking specifically at options for desktop web, mobile web, mobile app, call center, and in-store or in-branch integration.
Your program may not initially cover every one of these customer touchpoints, but it's important to make sure it can when the time comes. Have a coordinated roadmap that allows for flexibility and adaptability.
Customer experience and journey
The customer experience of your referral program should be simple. Ensure the journey has as few steps as possible, is on-brand (with the ability to customize images and URLs to match your business), and includes all the creative necessary for a complete customer experience.
As your program grows and matures, you'll need to track and reward every event that matters, such as application, approval, funding, disbursement, and transaction. Customers should have as many sharing channels as possible, as far as compliance permits, including email, SMS, Facebook, Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, and a personal share link.
The referred friend's experience
The experience of referred friends must be effective and streamlined. This part of refer-a-friend is often overlooked and needs particular attention. Your provider should be able to supply benchmark data for every step in the referral journey, so you can optimize your actual performance and evolve your program for maximum impact. For example, if referred friends are clicking on links but not converting, your provider should be able to step in and give guidance on how to increase your conversion rate.
Analytics and A/B testing
Your provider must offer rich, complete analytics, readily available in dashboards and via API. You will likely also need some custom reporting to reflect your business's unique measurement and analytics infrastructure.
Be open-minded about data and results, because refer-a-friend is a two-sided funnel (advocates and friends) rather than a more traditional one-sided marketing channel such as paid media.
A main purpose of rich analytics and benchmarking is to focus activity where it can most improve program performance. A key capability is therefore A/B testing. Look for the ability to test share experience capabilities, as well as offers, journeys, rules and limitations, and marketing placements.
Customer segmentation and targeting
Most brands start their refer-a-friend journey with a one-size-fits-all approach. One of the great opportunities of an enterprise-grade approach is the ability to offer different rewards and experiences to different customer segments. For example, your platinum card members should be treated and rewarded differently than your student card holders. Treat referral like a benefit of membership, not a promotion.
When evaluating a referral technology provider, determine whether their technology can:
- Target different experiences to specific audiences at the same time
- Localize language as necessary
- Identify interesting segments of advocates
- Reward different audiences or segments differently
Capabilities for your call center
When an advocate calls your call center asking about an unreceived reward, you need to give a fast and accurate response. Look at your provider's customer care screens and resolution capabilities to make sure this important part of the referral experience isn't overlooked and is instead a strength. Your customers and customer service reps will all benefit.
If your call center is involved in signing up new customers, part of that process may be asking whether they were referred, so referrals can be captured manually and trigger the appropriate rewards. The call center is an easily overlooked part of the customer journey.
Breadth of rewards and reward rules
Standard rewards for retailers are coupon codes, account credits, and loyalty points. Most banks and financial institutions use points or account credits. Evaluate all of these possibilities thoroughly, along with the ability to offer custom rewards and even gift cards. As your program grows and expands, having these options will become increasingly important.
Get feedback from your customers as you diversify and test your rewards. Ensure your reward is competitive in the market as well as against your other active promotions.
Protecting against fraud and gaming
The best referral programs have rules in place to detect fraud as it happens. Actions like self-referral may take place, so it is important to understand your customers' intentions and learn from how they interact with your program. Are these people only looking for rewards, or are they "deal-seekers" searching for the best offer?
The best referral providers have experience with fraud controls and prevention that take customer intent into account, and can generate program optimization plans accordingly.
Professional services and support desk
Finally, it's essential that your provider offers professional services that contribute actively to the growth of your program. Make sure your provider can give you:
- Data-backed best practices consulting
- Data analysis services
- Creative services
- Technical services
- Program strategy
- Support desk level troubleshooting
Key takeaways
- Look for industry experience, plus a clear vision for how referral and advocacy will evolve.
- Confirm built-in security and compliance, including ADA, CAN-SPAM, CCPA, and GDPR.
- Plan for every touchpoint: web, mobile, call center, and in-store or in-branch.
- Insist on rich analytics, A/B testing, segmentation, and fraud controls that consider customer intent.
- Choose a partner whose services help your program grow.
Put the framework to work
Brands use Extole to turn customers into advocates. Our enterprise technology and team of experts create powerful advocate and referral programs, so brands can harness the power of personal recommendations and sharing for the benefit of their bottom line. Use the criteria above to evaluate any provider, then see how Extole measures up. Request a demo to talk through your program.