Starting a referral program takes six decisions, and you can make all of them in an afternoon: decide the reward, write it down in terms a customer could repeat, put your link and QR code where your customers already are, ask at the moment the work is fresh, track what you owe, and pay it quickly. The programs that fail almost never fail on the reward amount. They fail because nothing was written down, nobody was asked, or someone was owed money and had to chase it.
Pick a number you can pay without flinching every single time, because you will be paying it on your best months. Most owners use a flat amount per closed job, or tiers if a service call and a full replacement are wildly different in value to them. Work it out from what a customer is worth to you and what you already spend to acquire one elsewhere, rather than copying a figure from another business with different economics.
Three sentences is enough: what counts as a referral, what you pay, and when you pay it. Write it as a person would say it out loud, not as a policy. On Revvin these sit on your referral page so every visitor sees the same terms, and neither you nor your referrer is relying on memory of a conversation months earlier.
A referral page nobody can find is a referral page nobody uses. Publish yours on your own Revvin link and get the QR code and print pack out of your dashboard, then put it on the things your customers already handle: the invoice, the receipt, the yard sign, the van, the fridge magnet, the paperwork you leave behind. The point is to remove the moment where someone has to remember your business name and search for it.
The ask does more work than the reward. Ask while the job is fresh and the customer is pleased, in person as you pack up or by message the same day, and ask for something specific rather than for a vague favour. Then ask your past customers as well, in batches, because that list is where the fastest referrals come from. On Pro you can import that list and Revvin will open your own email app with the recipients and text filled in, batch by batch, so it always sends from your address.
Every referral lands in your lead inbox with a status you move as you work it, from new lead through to closed. When you close one, the reward attached to it becomes pending, and your referrer can see that it was won. This is the part people improvise with texts and a notebook, and it is the part that quietly kills programs when someone is forgotten.
Pay the reward as soon as the job is paid, by whatever method you and your referrer already use. Revvin does not hold or move the money and takes no cut. Mark it paid in your dashboard and your referrer is notified. Paying fast is the single cheapest piece of marketing in the whole program, because the person you just paid tells other people about it.
Decide the reward, write the terms in three plain sentences, publish a referral page and put its link and QR code on your invoices, signage and vehicles, ask customers while the job is fresh, track each referral to a close, and pay the reward quickly. On Revvin the page, the QR code, the print pack and the lead inbox are free.
At minimum: what counts as a referral, the reward amount, when it gets paid, a way for the referral to reach you that is not word of mouth alone, and a record of who is owed what. Everything else is optional.
Building and publishing a Revvin referral page is an afternoon's work at most, and the QR code and print pack are generated for you. The longer part is deciding the reward and getting the link in front of the customers you already have.
No. Your page works the day you publish it and can be shared with anyone. But the customers who have already paid you are where referrals come from fastest, so importing that list and asking it is usually the first thing worth doing. List import and bulk asking are Revvin Pro features at $49/month USD.
No. Revvin never sends email or SMS on your behalf. It prepares the message and opens your own email app or messaging app with the recipients and the text filled in, in batches, so it sends from your own address or number and the relationship stays yours.