What it fixes
Word of mouth is often your cheapest source of jobs, but if it is not tracked you cannot thank it, pay for it or grow it. We pick who refers, what the ask is, and a reward you can afford per sold job. Every referral gets a CRM record linked to the person who sent it. We count referred jobs sold and paid, not shares or entries.
What the research says
- 31-57%
Customers who came by referral make 31% to 57% more referrals than customers from other channels. Referrals compound.
Journal of Marketing Research (Gershon and Jiang), Referral Contagion: Downstream Benefits of Customer Referrals, summarized by the AMA (2024) - 67%
Two in three HVAC homeowners found their contractor by word of mouth or recommendation. Referrals still fill the pipeline.
Clear Seas Research (BNP Media) with The ACHR NEWS, Survey shows how homeowners choose their HVAC contractor (2024) - 88%
Almost nine in ten consumers trust recommendations from friends and family more than any other source. A referral arrives pre-sold.
Nielsen, Trust in Advertising study reveals real-life situations and humour as the top attributes (2021)
What's inside
- 01
Take the baseline: share of new jobs from referrals
- 02
Choose who refers: customers, neighbours or partners
- 03
Set the ask, the reward and when it is paid
- 04
Check license, platform and disclosure rules
- 05
Add CRM fields that link referrer to referred
- 06
Draft the ask, the thank-you and the partner note
Deep-dives inside the playbook
- Ask templates
- Program design
See it in action
Most of our Minneapolis painting jobs come from neighbours telling neighbours, but I couldn't tell you how many. Should we pay a bonus?
Baseline: the referral share of new jobs with source and date, and the missing tracking that blocks a better number. Program design: a customer ask at job completion, a thank-you gift after the referred job is paid, and the cost per sold job. CRM tracking adds a referral source value and a link between the two records. Drafts: ask line, text, email, partner note and thank-you, all marked DRAFT.
At $10M and up
How it runs in a larger operation
At scale, referrals are the cheapest jobs you win, and the least measured. The CRM records the referrer on every job, and the thank-you is tied to a paid job. Leadership sees referral share and cost per sold job by branch.
- Referrer recorded on every job in the CRM
- Rewards paid only after the job is paid
- Referral share reported by location
