Lasting customer loyalty and quality customer engagement both boil down to a great customer experience. When a referral program is presented to customers properly, its overall performance improves dramatically. Clients who follow our referral program “best practices” typically see 10X higher conversion rates on their referral program compared to other stores. On the other hand, a poorly implemented referral program will only discourage potential users.
Our Facebook Messenger and SMS sharing features give your loyal shoppers a convenient and easy way to share referral links with family and friends
What are the most common problems with referral programs?
Bad interface
Even with faithful, motivated advocates, customers considering making referrals drop out mid-process when it’s not incredibly easy to share your brand. As with any other user flow in eCommerce, the more steps required to share, the more conversions are going to suffer.
Inconvenient sharing options
It’s critical to provide a number of easy-to-use sharing options once somebody is ready to refer. This is particularly important on mobile, where every extra tap is another opportunity to drop out of the funnel.
Sharing referral links can feel spammy on Facebook and Twitter, where users care about curating a social presence. Email can be clunky on mobile, and millennials and Gen Z prefer using social media platforms.
This is why we created referral sharing functionality with Facebook Messenger: the perfect middle ground.
Why is Facebook Messenger a game-changer?
The average Facebook user has 350 friends, with 15% of users having over 500. Shoppers looking to share their referral links via Facebook Messenger can immediately send direct messages to any of their friends, including those whose phone numbers they may not have saved. This combination of quality and access enhances referral program performance.
A personal link shared through Facebook Messenger works up to 15x better than just posting that link on Facebook. This is because Messenger has been developed specifically to replicate the feeling of a face-to-face conversation. Today’s shoppers want to be talked “to” rather than talked “at,” so one-to-one sharing gives them the personal touch they crave.
Facebook Messenger allows shoppers to target only friends that they know will enjoy the brand they are sharing, rather than sharing referral links indiscriminately on their Facebook Timeline. This preserves and even promotes their social capital.
Many stores now see more than 50% of their site traffic coming from mobile. There are more than 1.3 billion users on the Messenger mobile app, but for those mobile shoppers who prefer to send referral links via text message, our SMS feature works in exactly the same way.
How do I encourage my customers to share links via Facebook Messenger or SMS?
Get creative with your UX design! We suggest making the Facebook Messenger or SMS option larger and more prominent than the other share buttons on your site. Then, once a customer clicks through, a window will pop up, and give them the option to select friends or contacts to share your referral link with and write a personalized message.
