Referral & Commissions Management Software

The Referral module streamlines the management of your referral program by giving partners an area to submit referrals and track their status using our software. Set up your own workflows to manage the acceptance and payment status of referrals, all while keeping the partner in the loop on referral sales stages and commissions.

Why Use Channeltivity’s Referral Management Software?

Channeltivity’s referral management software empowers companies to build and scale successful referral programs, driving increased lead generation, customer acquisition, and revenue growth.

Straightforward Referral Capture

Channeltivity streamlines the referral process for partners and vendors and makes it easy for partners to submit referrals. There are two ways to kick off the referral process in Channeltivity:

1. A partner logs into the Channeltivity Partner Portal and enters a new Referral from the Referral module.
2. Partners generate a personalized link to share with their prospects, who fill out a form to receive more information about a vendor. Submitting the form automatically creates a Referral in Channeltivity, eliminating the need for partners to log into the Portal each time they want to submit a Referral.

Flexible Referral Routing

Whether your organization directly works with referred leads or hands them off to reseller partners, our referral management software can handle your program needs:

• Direct sales: Give your internal sales team access to submitted referrals to pursue new business directly.
• Indirect sales: Distribute referrals to other channel partners using the Lead Distribution module.

Built-in CRM Integration

Channeltivity’s integrations with HubSpot and Salesforce make it easy to track Referrals in your CRM. Both integrations are plug-and-play, helping you get your Referral program up and running quickly.

Once activated, the Salesforce Referral flow works in 3 simple steps:

1. Once a Partner submits a Referral, Channeltivity creates a copy of the Referral as a Lead within Salesforce. This can be configured to happen automatically or on a manual basis.
2. Changes made to the Referral in Channeltivity are reflected in Salesforce and vice versa.
3. Should you decide to convert the Lead to an Opportunity, Channeltivity will recognize the conversion and maintain the link to the corresponding record in Channeltivity. 

HubSpot users benefit from a similar Referral flow:

1. Once a Partner or Distributor submits a Referral, Channeltivity creates a copy of the Referral as a Deal in HubSpot. This can be configured to happen automatically or manually. 
2. By default, our integration sets the Deal’s Company and Contact based on the email address of the Contact (end-user) listed on the Referral in Channeltivity.

Customizable Referral Reporting

Both partners and internal users can view, analyze, and download Referral activity within Channeltivity at any time. The Referral Report allows filtering data based on any fields in the referral module, sorting the results, and selecting which columns are displayed.

If you know you’ll pull the same information on a regular cadence, say for an internal or external QBR, you can save your list view for quick access.

Closed Loop with Lead Distribution and Deal Registration

If your channel program includes both referral and reseller partners, our referral module’s tight integration with the Lead Distribution and Deal Registration modules increases referral efficiencies and prevents data living in separate silos. Here’s an illustration:

1. A referral partner submits a referral in Channeltivity.
2. The referral is distributed to a different reseller partner as a lead.
3. The reseller partner receives the lead and starts pursuing it.
4. The reseller then converts the lead to a deal registration.
5. The reseller wins the deal.

During this whole process, the referral partner maintains visibility into the status of their referral all the way through the end when the referral results in a new customer and their commission is calculated. Channeltivity’s referral management software creates a closed loop during the referral’s journey and includes many useful features, including:

• Being able to configure which lead and deal data are visible to the referral partner.
• Automatically notifying referral partners of won deals.
• End-to-end reporting from referral to revenue.

Referral Handling Workflow Example

You can easily create your own custom Referral workflow within Channeltivity’s referral management software. To illustrate a typical process, here’s what happens once a Referral is submitted: 

1. The Referral gets synced to the vendor’s CRM via Channeltivity’s native integration with Salesforce or HubSpot.
2. The vendor receives an email notifying them of the new Referral and views the submitted record within Channeltivity or their CRM. At this point, they can:
   1. Accept the Referral and send it to their own sales team.
   2. Send the Referral to a Reseller Partner as a Lead. That partner can then either convert the Lead to a Deal or close it if there’s no business.
   3. Reject the Referral.
3. If the partner manager feels it’s a good fit, they change the Referral status to “Accepted.” This automatically notifies the partner that their Referral has been accepted. Note that referral partners can log into the Portal to check their referral at any point in time.
4. When the Referral deal closes in the CRM, the status of the Referral record in Channeltivity flips to “Won, payment pending” and the commission amount is automatically calculated. The referring partner receives an email notification.
5. Once the Referral commission fee is paid out, the Referral status is updated to “Won, payment completed.”

Easy Referral Management Software

Just like the rest of our partner relationship management suite, Channeltivity’s referral management software makes it easy for everyone. Configured in minutes, but powerful and flexible enough to handle referral programs of any size, our software is the solution of choice for high-tech companies worldwide.

Ready to see for yourself? Sign up for a one-on-one demo with one of our experts.

What Are Referrals and Why Should You Have a Referral Program?

Referrals are leads that come from referral partners. Referral partners will make introductions between the lead and the vendor to kick off the relationship. For recommending a vendor’s offerings to their contact or network, Referral partners often receive a commission. The commission can be a flat fee or a percentage of a closed deal’s annual contract value (ACV).

Referral leads are highly valuable for a number of reasons, including:

1. More qualified: Referral partners often have an existing relationship with the prospect and are making the referral because they see alignment between the prospect’s need and the vendor’s offering.
2. Higher conversion rate: The vendor’s credibility is increased when a trusted referral partner makes the recommendation. This leads to higher conversion rates and lowers CAC. 
3. Shorter sales cycles: The credibility of the vendor also impacts buyer due diligence and can lead to shorter sales cycles for referrals.
4. Cost-effectiveness: Referral programs typically involve minimal marketing expenses. Instead, they rely on leveraging existing relationships and incentivizing referrals, reducing the cost per acquisition.

When done right, referrals are an excellent way for high-tech companies to scale. For one, referral partners instantly expand a company’s addressable market, getting vendors’ in front of new audiences. Since referral partners act as an extension of a vendor’s prospecting team, companies can spend less time and effort on lead generation.

And when it’s time to take a product overseas or to a new industry, referral partners can help high-tech companies penetrate those markets. Partners may already have customers in that area they can instantly refer. Over time, this develops a strong presence for the vendor without them having to expend valuable resources on outreach and demand gen. 

Why Do I Need Referral Management Software?

The only way to scale and manage a referral program is through the proper software. It’s not impossible to keep track of referrals and commissions in spreadsheets or your CRM, but to efficiently grow your program to a certain size requires referral management software. The benefits include:

• Trust & self service: Referral partners can log into your partner portal and see the status and commissions of their referrals. Instead of responding to emailed questions, referral partners log into your self-service software to get what they need.
• Efficiency: Stop keeping track of referrals and their status separately, and creating commissions reports for each partner. Automate the whole process and reduce your workload.

Sign up for a demo with one of our experts and learn how Channeltivity’s referral management software can help your program.

How do I Launch a Referral Program?

Before starting a referral program, companies want to make sure their product makes customers happy. When referral partners make a referral to a vendor, they put their reputation on the line. If the referral has a bad experience with your company, it has the potential to poison your relationship with your referral partner.

Companies often initiate referral partnerships when they start to receive referrals from their customers organically or during a particularly convenient time in the market. This serves as the impetus for perhaps a more formal referral program with more active and targeted recruitment.

At the outset, referral partnerships usually have good momentum. But it’s hard to sustain a high velocity of leads, which is why you need a strong referral management process and supporting software. Referral management involves:

• Deciding who referral partners should be (existing customers, influencers, service providers, software that integrates with your product, or all of the above)
• Brainstorming effective incentives
• Equipping referral partners with adequate resources
• Encouraging partners to generate leads
• Tracking referrals throughout the sales cycle

For more tips on managing a referral program, check out our article How to Ace Referral Management in 5 Steps.

Learn More About Referral Management and Software

Starting up a referral program or hoping to streamline an existing one? Check out our resources below or request a demo with one of our referral management software experts.

• How to Ace Referral Management in 5 Steps
• Channeltivity Knowledge Base: What Is the Channeltivity Referral Module and How Does It Work?
• What is a Self-Service PRM?