3 things consumers hate about online referral programs
RewardStream has years of experience providing online referral programs to our clients and one of the services we provide is customer support to end users – which is why we know so much about what our program users want!
In the second part of our referral marketing CX/UX series, we take a look at what users don’t like about referral marketing programs and offer some tips on what you can do to make your users happy.
Here are three of the pet peeves that online referral program users have:
- All Good Things Take Time
Even if the payoff will be a happy experience, most of us hate waiting. Whether it’s in line at a supermarket or waiting for a reward you are due for referring a friend to your internet provider, waiting periods can be almost intolerable.
As referral marketing professionals, we understand why customers must wait before they receive a reward. Companies can’t just hand out rewards to everyone who signs up on the program website. That would cost a small fortune! Unfortunately, for many customers there is an expectation that their reward will be issued instantly once they sign up online and without any caveats.
Regardless of the industry or product, there will always be a waiting period before a reward can be issued in an online referral program. The waiting period exists primarily to accommodate a company’s business needs. Unfortunately this can contribute to customer misunderstandings about why they are being made to wait since customers are generally detached from these business idiosyncrasies. Companies often want to make sure a new customer referred to them maintains their service for a pre-determined amount of time to ensure that a reward payment is worthwhile. There is very little to be gained from rewarding someone who then switches brands again within a few weeks.
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