This guide will show you how to set up a Referral campaign, allowing your clients to earn a free gift card by referring a new client to your business.
Not Yet Fully Released
This feature is currently in early access and available only to a select group of businesses. When fully released, it may be limited to specific Phorest subscription packages. We’ll let you know as soon as it becomes widely available.
In this Article
Video Guide
How Does it Work?
Referrals let you reward loyal clients for bringing new clients to your business. When an existing client refers someone new, both clients receive a gift card as part of the program.
The referred (new) client gets their gift card after creating their profile, while the referring (existing) client receives theirs once the referred client completes an appointment or makes a purchase (retail included).
How Do I Enable Referrals?
To get started, go to Marketing > Referrals > Settings, then enable Make Referrals available for my clients.
Setting Your Referral Rewards
After you've enabled referrals, set the value of the gift card for both the referring and referred clients and then set the expiry period for each gift card.
The expiry period begins when the gift card is issued to the client.
Click Save changes, and your Referral program will be activated.
Enabling Referrals will automatically disable the TreatCard referral system if it is currently active. Click here to learn more about the TreatCard referral system.
How Can Clients Make a Referral?
Once enabled, each client is assigned a unique referral link, which they can find in the Loyalty section of your online booking page or your Branded App (if you have one).
Clients can copy and share this link with their friends and family. Once someone clicks the link and follows the instructions, they can enter their information and claim their gift card.
The referred person will be added as a new client to your client list, and their gift card will be automatically assigned. They will also receive the gift card immediately by email.
If the information they provide matches an existing client in your client list, they will receive a notification stating they are not eligible to participate in the referral program.
In-House or Over-the-Phone Referrals
If the referred client chooses to call you or come into the business instead of signing up online, you can still reward both clients through the Referral program by creating the referred client in your Phorest system and updating the Referred by field to the existing client who referred them.
Once this is updated, the referred client will immediately receive their gift card.
When Does the Referring (Existing) Client Receive Their Gift Card?
The referring (existing) client will receive their gift card once the referred client has completed and checked out an appointment or made a retail purchase.
The gift card will also be sent immediately by email, provided the referring client has an email address listed on their client profile.
Promoting Your Referral Program
Use the Marketing suite to send your clients an email with their unique referral link to let them know about your referral program and encourage them to participate.
When creating your email, make sure to include the Referral Link option under Personalise in the body of your campaign (it cannot be included in the Subject). You can send this same email to all of your clients, and the referral link will be unique for each client that receives the email.
Reporting on Your Referral Program Performance
To see how well your Referral program is performing, go to Marketing > Referrals, and you'll be brought straight to the Dashboard where you can see the performance.
The information on the performance dashboard can take up to 1 hour to update.
You can use the filter to see your performance over a certain period of time.
Click the Clients tab to see a list of all clients who have been referred, their referral status, who referred them, and more.
You can click a referred client name from this screen to open their client profile.
FAQs
I have multiple locations in Phorest. Can I limit gift cards to only be redeemable in one location?
No, clients can redeem their gift cards at any of your locations, just like regular gift cards.
I have multiple locations in Phorest. Can I have different Referral settings (gift card amount and expiry time) in each location?
No, your Referral settings apply to all locations within your business and cannot be configured separately for each location.
Do staff members still receive commission when clients use the gift cards they received from the Referral program?
You can choose whether or not commission will be calculated when these gift cards are used, similar to other promotional gift cards. Click here for more information on how promotional gift cards affect staff commission.
I have clients coming in as referrals, but they do not appear in the data displayed on the Referrals Dashboard.
The information on the dashboard can sometimes take around 1 hour to update.