Imagine a system that would allow you to give a customer store credit proportional to the new business they bring to your site. For example, Customer A refers Friend to your site. Friend buys $210 dollars in product. Customer A automatically gets 5% of that as store credit for her next purchase.

Would you use such an incentive program?

I would use a version of that, I'd want it to be more specific, maybe for a set time period, or with set products. But rewarding customers that refer other customers is a definite on my list of marketing strategies!

Dara

THAT WOULD BE A GREAT NEW FEATURE! HINT HINT!

Yeah, I think it's a great idea. I also hope in 4.0 they redesigned the discount code section. I'd like to see expiration dates, free shipping and discounts by order total to name a few things... I won't bother going into too much detail since I beleive this has already been mentioned in another forum section.

Example:

Free shipping on orders over $50, auto expires in 30 days.

I think that anything that will generate additional traffic to your website is a winning feature to add. I would use this to my advantage as well.

CBHALE

That would be a great program! I would totally be up for it.

That would be great... hmmm... is it available?

I already have a system like this in place - albeit a manual one.

I created a discount code for my best - and most vocal - customers. Basically it's just thier first initial and last name. When they refer a friend, and their friend enters their code in the discount field, they get a percentage of the sale deposited into their account. Some customer codes also give small discounts to the friends as well.

So basically I have to watch for those discount codes to come through, apply the credit to my customer's account, then send them a "thanks and congratulations" email. Whew! I'd love it if could help me with this.

QUOTE (ultimatekeychains @ May 21 2003, 05:58 PM)

Yeah, I think it's a great idea. I also hope in 4.0 they redesigned the discount code section. I'd like to see expiration dates, free shipping and discounts by order total to name a few things... I won't bother going into too much detail since I beleive this has already been mentioned in another forum section. Example: Free shipping on orders over $50, auto expires in 30 days.

I whole-heartedly agree Ultimate - I'd give anything for a free shipping discount code. It used to be one of my most popular offerings.

Jean-Ann Mosley, how do you add funds to an account via the Commerce software? I can't find any such mechanism in the current version.

On this topic, I have been reminded that one of the benefits of the incentive program is that a person with even a little bit of store credit might feel compelled to buy something big to make sure they do not leave the credit unusued.

Great suggestion.

The way we can do this is by adding another field to the customer profile called Store Credit. And in the checkout part we add a textbox for the customer to enter the customer that referred him/her to the store.

We would have to add a few more options to the admin panel where the admin can enter how much credit the customer would get.

Developing this feature into the products where the admin would choose which products the store credit applies to would be a little bit harder.

Robert...

I don't add the funds via ....I issue the customer a credit via Quickbooks. Most of the customers that give me referrals having running balances with my company anyway, so it's just reflected on their monthly statement.

But that would be great if MC could keep track of "referral credits" for my customers and deduct the amount from their shopping cart on the next order.

Adnan, thanks for being so up on the idea! I believe the customer would need to give the email addess the friend who told him/her about my site. MonsterCommerce seems to identify people by email.

One of the things I have learned from the retail store we have is that our current customers are our best advertising. If people like what you are doing, they want you to stay in business and prosper. We reward our regular customers -- especially those who bring in new customers -- with discounts. If we could do this online I'm sure the effect would be the same.

People are basically good, and if they like what you are trying to accomplish at your site, they will help to spread the word. This referral program would give them even more of a reward for doing so.

We totally agree and would love to have a system where we could set a customer to get 5% or $x credit per new customer they sent to us. The new customer would only need to enter the email address of the person who sent them.

Please ?

Good Stuff!!! Im with you!


www.mineralbeauty.com

Looks like the jury is in! Most of us would love to have a referral system! Thanks for responding to the poll.

A referral program would be AWESOME! I've integrated it in my face to face sales and I've also done such programs as sending out "birthday" freebies or a gift on the anniversary date when a new customer came aboard. Of course, my customer base isn't that large right now so I can afford to do that but I also plan on trying to implement that sort of reward program online. But there are other things to deal with before I go hog wild; and with the software, it's easy to get carried away!

Keep up the good work MC staff!

Beverly
www.e-goddessenterprises.com

I agree with all of you... needs to implement a better affiliate program. I have learned the value of referals first hand... MC clients are awesome in this regard... you all refer us a lot of business. We appreciate it. Thank you!

I will speak with Adnan and Josh about this... Have any of you tried the two programs we are integrated with? Are they any good? Are they too expensive. Any feedback on these is appreciated.

Captain, we're talking about customer referrals here, not Affiliation programs. We are talking about code that lets us reward a customer for sending a friend to us. Many of us need to do both-- join affiliation programs and reward referring customers with store credit.

I totally agree with a rewards program. But, I think you did misunderstand Captain. I doubt that many customers would join a affiliate program to get credits for referring friends. But, if it were built into the store so that they just referred friends with their email or even a number and the friend could just type in the number/email at checkout, they would definitely do it.
Here is one way it could be accomplished. Take the gift certificate. Have a customer sign up for the "Refer a Friend" program, they are emailed a code (which would be a gift certificate code), the friend visits and enters the code at checkout, the code takes a percentage/set amount of the sale and enters it in the gift certificate account of the referrer.
I could see it being a hardy project for the MC team, but one that is not out of the question, and as you can see from this thread, its an upgrade that would be much appreciated.

I would say that the first version of the upgrade shouldn't be too complicated. It can be set as one amount, either a percentage (such as 5% of the sale) or a set amount (such as $5 per sale).
Then, once the program is running smoothly it can become more complicated as to different amounts for different products or different customers, etc.
My Two Cents

Your simple version is all I need!

As for Affiliate Programs and Reward/Referral programs, I do not think they are interchangeable. Most of my friends do not have a website and thus could never join an affiliation program as an Affiliate.

Hi Robert

Have to dissagree there

Some of the very good affiliates do their marketing via Email and CPC campaigns, they have no web site at all.

However the above points about the refer versus affiliate are very valid and I agree it should be seperate systems

Cheers

Chris

The affiliation programs I have looked most closely at require that you have a website to become an Affiliate.