Referral rewards
When a client's friend becomes a paying customer, the client gets a thank-you reward and a text — automatically, if you set three things up.
3 min readUpdated August 16, 2026Managers
A regular sends their sister in. The sister has her first appointment, pays, and leaves happy. With referral rewards on, the regular's phone buzzes before you've swept up: her thank-you — say, $10 off her next visit — is already waiting, and nobody at the desk had to remember to arrange it.
It starts on the client card
The product can only thank a referrer it knows about. When a new client is added, the Referred by section on their card takes both how they heard about you and — the part that matters here — which client sent them. Make "who should we thank for sending you?" part of the new-client script at the desk; it's a warmer question than a marketing survey, and it's the trigger for everything below.
Making the reward
The reward itself is an offer with a job. Keeping it an ordinary offer means everything you already know applies — it has a name, a value, a window, and it shows up in redemption counts like anything else.
- 1
Go to Offers and press New offer.
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Name it something the referrer will understand when it lands on their phone — "Referral thank-you $10" rather than "REF-Q3".
- 3
Set What it's for to A referral thank-you. This is what puts it in the picker in the next section, and it's set when you create the offer.
- 4
Give it a value and a start date as you would any other offer, and press Create offer.
A referral thank-you doesn't run on its own. It sits waiting until you point the setting below at it, so making one costs you nothing until you're ready.
Switching it on
- 1
Go to Settings → Referral rewards.
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Tick Automatically reward a referrer when the client they referred completes their first sale.
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Pick the Reward offer. The picker lists only referral-reward offers, so a seasonal flash sale can't be wired in by mistake.
- 4
Set Reward expires after (days) — or leave it blank for rewards that never lapse.
- 5
Press Save. Preview drafts the actual thank-you text a referrer will receive, so you can read it before anyone else does.
You can't switch this on without picking a reward offer — a thank-you programme with no thank-you in it is a mistake the screen refuses for you.
What happens on its own
The moment a referred client's first sale closes, the referrer is granted the reward, and — if they have a phone number and have opted into marketing texts — a text like "your referral just earned you a reward: Referral thank-you $10. Use code THANKYOU10. See you soon!" goes out. No text consent, no problem: the reward still exists, it's only the message that stays home.
One referrer, one waiting reward: if a second friend pays their first bill while the earlier thank-you is unused, a second reward isn't stacked on top. And it's the first sale that counts, not the first booking — the thank-you is for a friend who became a customer, not one who made an appointment.
Cashing it in
At the referrer's next checkout, the front desk applies the reward offer from the ordinary Apply offer picker — nothing special to find, no code to demand. Using it marks the waiting reward as redeemed, oldest first, and the expiry you set is what stops an old thank-you resurfacing a year later.
Common questions
Does the friend get something too?
Not from this. The referral reward thanks the person who did the sending. If you want the new client welcomed with a discount as well, run a separate new-client offer alongside — the two don't interfere.
Two friends came in — does the client get two rewards?
Not while the first reward is still waiting. A second one isn't granted until the earlier one is used or expires, so rewards are a thank-you, not a currency that piles up.
The referrer never got the text. Did they lose the reward?
No. The text only goes to referrers with a phone number who've said yes to marketing texts — the reward itself is theirs either way, and the front desk applies it at their next visit like any other offer.
What counts as the friend 'becoming a customer'?
Their first paid, closed sale. Booking an appointment isn't enough — the thank-you goes out when money has actually changed hands.
Do rewards hang around forever?
Only if you leave Reward expires after (days) blank. Set it and each reward lapses quietly after that many days, so January's thank-you doesn't surface in August.
Related articles
- Add a clientClients · What you actually need to type to create someone, what you can leave for later, and the message settings that decide what they're allowed to be sent.
- Create an offerOffers · A discount written down as rules — what comes off, how it reaches a sale, when it runs, and the Enable switch that actually turns it on.
- Use an offer at checkoutOffers · Putting a discount on the bill, the code a client typed when they booked, and how to read the message when an offer refuses to apply.
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