Overview
Client-to-client word of mouth is a powerful way to get high-quality leads for your business and grow your client base. Boulevard’s client referral program makes it easy for you to reward clients for referring a friend to your business and provides new clients with a special offer for their first appointment.
Each client has a custom referral code that they can share with their friends. The new client receives a discount on their first appointment, and the referring client receives an account credit or a service voucher after the first appointment is complete.
The referral program is included for businesses on Premier, Prestige, or Enterprise Tiers. Enterprise businesses can also leverage our Client API to use the referral program in their own client portals, client apps, and/or custom booking.
Businesses that perform medical services: before enabling Referrals, carefully consider whether your use will comply with all applicable federal and state laws. Only you can make this final determination, and we recommend consulting with your legal and professional advisors.
Setting up a client referral program
Create and name your referral program
Head to the gear icon > referral program to begin setting up. The program will automatically apply to all locations at your business
Name your referral program
Short and sweet is best! We like “give $25, get $25” because it makes it clear how the program works, and highlights the rewards.
Add a description
Add some additional color to how your program works. This will be visible to existing clients in their client portal. As a general guideline, specify what each new client will receive, and how your existing client will be rewarded.
Set up your existing client reward
Select the type of reward the existing client will receive for referring each friend. You can choose between an account credit or a voucher.
Account credit - A specified dollar amount that the existing client can redeem toward any purchase. Account credit is like cash in that it can be used for any service, product, tip, tax, or gift card. Account credit does not expire. Learn more about account credit.
Voucher - A voucher can be redeemed for the full value of any service or add-on you select. You can choose one or more redeemable services per voucher reward. When your client receives this voucher reward, they will be able to redeem one service for free. Vouchers can have an expiration date.
If you’ve selected account credit as the existing client reward, choose the dollar amount you’d like the existing client to receive as their reward.
If you’ve selected voucher as the existing client reward:
Select which services you’d like to be redeemable within this voucher reward.
Select your voucher expiration date, if desired.
The existing client receives an email thanking them for the referral and receives their reward one business day after the new client completes their appointment. Available vouchers will be visible in their client profile, under the Referrals section.
The existing client does not get rewarded if the referral was already a client of your business.
The existing client does not get rewarded if the new client makes a purchase outside of an appointment (ex. a product purchase with no service), but will be rewarded if/when the new client ever completes an appointment.
Set up the new client offer
Select the discount you would like newly referred clients to enjoy at their first appointment.
To be eligible for the discount, they must not have had an appointment at your business before.
You can restrict the discount to particular services or products
Decide whether the discount should apply to the entire order, or to each item individually.
Entire order example:
Friend offer is $25 off
New client receives $80 service and buys $35 of retail, totaling $115. They receive $25 off, and owe $90.
Individual item example:
Friend offer is $25 off
New client receives $80 service and buys $35 of retail, totaling $115. They receive $25 off the service, and $25 off the retail, and owe $75.
When a new client books their appointment using a referral code, the discount will be automatically applied at booking and checkout.
If the client books a $0 service, the discount will be saved to apply at checkout in case they purchase additional eligible services or products during their appointment.
Add terms and conditions
You can add additional terms and conditions to your profile. We recommend you include something like:
“You will receive a reward if the client you refer is a new client (who has not had an appointment at our business) and the new client completes their first appointment.”
Promote referrals in booking
You can promote your referral program to existing clients by adding a link to the client booking experience. When a client clicks the link, they’ll be taken to the client portal where they can easily share their link with friends and family.
Toggle on “Show on Booking Confirmation Screen” to display your referral tagline and description at the end of the booking process within the self-booking overlay.
Toggle on “Show on Booking Confirmation Email” to include it in confirmation emails for easy sharing.
Activate your referral program (or save as draft)
To activate your referral program, hit “save.” Your program will now be visible in the client portal for clients, and live for staff.
To save a draft of your program without activating it for clients and staff, deselect the “active” toggle before hitting “save”.
Adjusting or ending your referral program
If you make changes to your referral program, all new referrals generated after that time will adhere to the new settings. Any appointments booked using the previous version's codes will still be subject to that version’s settings.
To end your referral program, toggle off the “active” button. The referral program will be hidden from the client portal, and new clients attempting to book with referral codes will receive the error code below.
Promoting your referral program
Announce your client referral program by promoting it during the client booking experience and through email and text blasts. When clients click the referral link, they'll be directed to the client portal, where they can easily share it with friends and family.
Adding link to the client booking experience
To promote your referral program within the client booking experience head to the gear icon > referral program > Promote referrals in booking to adjust your settings.
Toggle on “Show on Booking Confirmation Screen” to display your referral tagline and description at the end of the booking process within the self-booking overlay.
Toggle on “Show on Booking Confirmation Email” to include it in confirmation emails for easy sharing.
Example booking confirmation screen | Example booking confirmation email |
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Adding link to referral program to a text blast
To promote your referral program through text blast, go to the Marketing tab > Blast Campaigns > select New Campaign, then start building your marketing text message.
Select "referral program" in the dropdown menu to include a link for existing clients to get their custom code.
Adding link to referral program to an email blast
To promote your referral program through email blast, go to the Marketing tab > Blast Campaigns > select New Campaign, then start building your marketing email message.
Select the "refer a friend" action to direct existing clients to the referral program page, where they can get their referral code.
Example email blast promoting referral program
Existing client experience
Sharing the referral code
Clients can navigate to the “Refer a Friend” tab in the client portal to find and share their custom referral code. You can also run text and email promotions for your referral program that send links to this page.
When they select the “Get my referral code” button, they can either copy the code or share it using their smartphone’s share screen.
Getting rewarded for a successful referral
One business day after the newly referred client completes their first appointment, the existing client who referred them receives a notification of their account credit or voucher reward. The existing client will also see a list of successful referrals on the referral page of the client portal.
Example email for account credit reward | Example email for voucher reward |
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Example of voucher reward in Client Portal
New client experience
The new client will receive a message from your existing client with a custom booking link. Here’s what the auto-generated text looks like through iMessage (existing clients have the option to customize before sending).
When the new client clicks the link, they are brought to a landing page that explains the eligibility requirements for the referral program. They can continue on to book an appointment using the custom referral link.
When they reach the end of booking, their first-visit discount is automatically applied. Their newly created client profile is updated with their referral source, and the discount will be applied to applicable items when they check out at their first appointment.
If the new client books a $0 service, the discount will be saved to apply at checkout in case they purchase additional eligible services or products during their appointment.
Manually adding new clients to the referral program
If a new client does not utilize the custom referral link while booking their appointment, you and your staff can manually add them to the referral program so they can enjoy their first-visit discount, and an existing client can still get rewarded for referring them to your business.
Adding a client to the referral program at checkout
When a new client is checking out of their first appointment, go to the Referral Discount section of the checkout window to search for the correct existing client referral code. This will apply the first-visit discount to the order for eligible items. One business day after checkout is complete, the existing client will be rewarded automatically for their referral.
Referral program Reporting
Reports you can use to monitor the referrals generated from your program.
The Referral Program Leaderboard report tracks how many new clients each of your existing clients refers to your business, plus the value of the new clients and the total amount of rewards you've given.
The Referral Sources report will show you how many clients total have been referred from every Referral Source, including the Referral Program.
The Referral Sources by Client report will include referral program participants as well as clients referred by "Another Client."
Reports to track overall voucher activity and referral-driven activity.
The Voucher Liability Summary report includes a metric that shows the value of all vouchers associated with your referral program.
The Detailed Voucher Activity report tracks all actions related to vouchers and helps with monitoring voucher usage, managing liabilities, and ensuring accurate financial reporting.
The Outstanding Voucher Liability report provides a summary of all issued vouchers that have not yet been redeemed.
The Voucher Redemptions report provides metrics for membership, package, or reward vouchers redeemed by clients.
Troubleshooting referral code errors while booking
When a client goes to use a referral code, here’s a breakdown of the errors they may see and a description of why they are seeing that error.
Error message | Description of scenario(s) |
Enter a valid code |
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Code valid for new clients only | The client has previously completed an appointment at your business. |
Referral program is no longer active | You have deactivated your referral program since they received the referral code. |