Refer a Friend/Member

Referral marketing is a cost-effective way to drive account and deposit growth. A seamless referral program can lead to faster growth, lower acquisition costs, and increased customer retention. With Narmi's Refer a Friend/Member feature, you can provide your Digital Banking and Account Opening users with a simple way to send a referral code or referral URL to their friends or members. 

To enable Refer A Friend/Member, your institution must be using our Digital Banking and Account Opening products, or just our Account Opening product. You can opt to have separate referral codes for Consumer Account Opening and Business Account Opening. Please contact your Narmi Relationship Manager to enable and configure referral functionality.

Note: If your institution is a credit union, instances of "refer a friend" will display "refer a member."

In this article:

• Referral Benefits
• How Customers Refer a Friend/Member
• How Friends/Members Enter the Referral Code
• Refer a Friend/Member Institution Settings
• Tracking Referrals

Referral Benefits

Some of the benefits of our Refer a Friend/Member feature are:

• Lower Customer Acquisition Cost – It can cost hundreds, if not thousands of dollars to acquire new customers. Instead of leveraging the same expensive channels your competition is bidding for, leverage your existing customer base. Offer referral bonuses that are less than what you pay currently for advertising spend and see better results.
• Grow Deposits Faster – Friends trust other friends. Referrals increase the likelihood of successful conversions and therefore financial institutions will see deposit growth materialize faster. Paying referral bonuses serve as a motivating tool for applicants to complete account opening applications. Additional bonuses based on activity further incentivize deposit-driven behavior.
• Increased Engagement – Referred customers tend to be more engaged than completely new customers with no connection to the financial institution. Further, existing customers who leverage referral programs typically exhibit higher engagement over time. Overall, this is a win-win for your financial institution.
• Leverage Technology in a Mobile-First Manner – Financial institutions must be frictionless and mobile-first. By offering native mobile referral functionality, you will be on par with mobile applications like Uber, Lyft, and Airbnb. Having customers discuss your financial institution’s mobile experience in the same breath as these other apps is any marketer’s dream.
• Deliver a User Experience Users Expect – Customers expect things to be easy. If you offer referral functionality, they expect the process to be simple, elegant, and quick. Narmi’s e end-to-end referral functionality delivers a seamless experience your customers will not forget.

How Customers Refer a Friend/Member

How customers refer a friend/member is based on whether your institution uses our Digital Banking and Account Opening products, or only our Account Opening product.

Both Digital Banking and Account Opening

If your institution uses both our Digital Banking and Account Opening products, your customers refer a friend/member from the web and mobile apps. 

To refer on the mobile app:

1. Scroll to the bottom of the Home page feed and select the Refer a friend/member card.
   
2. On the page that appears, select Copy to copy the code, and then select Share Your Code to paste that code into an email, text, or note.
   

To refer on the web app:

1. Select Tools, then select Refer a friend/member.
   
   
   
2. On the page that appears, select Send an invite to automatically open your email and send a referral link to a friend, or select copy your referral link to copy the link in order to send it a different way. You must have the Business Referral URL or Consumer Referral URL specified in Institution Settings for use in the web app, as referral codes are only available in the mobile app. Go to referral settings for more details.
   

Only Account Opening

If your institution only uses our Account Opening product, you can either: 1) add URL parameters to your Account Opening URL or 2) configure the referral code field to accept any value. Both options are described below.

URL Parameters

If your institution only uses our Account Opening product, you can opt to add URL parameters to your Account Opening URL and provide that URL to your customers in order to refer a friend. The following URL is an example with the ad_campaign parameter key and Fall2023 parameter value appended to it:

https://fi_name-open.uat.narmitech.com/welcome?ad_campaign=Fall2023 

You must first set up URL parameters in the Admin Platform before you can use them in a URL. For more information and instructions, go to URL Parameters.

Once a referred customer completes an application via your custom URL, Narmi writes the values of these parameters to the core, but only for institutions using Symitar or ESBs. The parameter key and value will also be visible in the Metadata field of the Admin Platform's Application View, or the metadata column of the Consumer Account Applications report, Business Account Applications report, and Staffer-Led Account Applications report. Go to Tracking Referrals below for more information.

Configure the Referral Code Field

If your institution only uses our Account Opening product, you can opt to configure the application's Referral Code field to accept any value. Once this is configured, applicants can enter any value in the application's Referral Code field. Please contact your Narmi Relationship Manager to configure this option for your institution.

With this option, your staff is responsible for tracking the referral code value in applications, as they are not validated by Narmi. You can track applications using this referral method from the Referred Applications report, Consumer Account Applications report, Business Account Applications report, and Staffer-Led Account Applications report. Go to Tracking from Reports for more information. 

How Friends/Members Enter the Referral Code

To enter the referral code, on the funding page of the applicant flow, applicants enter the code in the Referral code box.

Refer a Friend/Member Institution Settings

Your institution can customize various components of the referral feature, including the referral page, the incentive amount, and the referral email that is sent. To access the referral settings, from the Admin platform, select Configurations > Institution settings > Refer A Friend.

The following settings are available:

• Additional Offer Text – An additional paragraph shown below Offer Text on the Refer a Friend/Member screen (Mobile Banking only). This message is directed to a user who is sharing a referral code.
• Referral Incentive Amount – Dollar amount that a referred applicant receives after successfully opening an account through the Account Opening platform.
• Business Referral URL – URL that navigates a business user to open an account through referral. This will override the referral code used in the mobile app, so this should only be adjusted with the help of Narmi Support.
• Consumer Referral URL – URL that navigates a consumer user to open an account through referral. This will override the referral code used in the mobile app, so this should only be adjusted with the help of Narmi Support.
• Offer Text – Offer text shown on the Refer a Friend/Member page of the web app, and the Refer A Friend/Member card and page on the mobile app. This message is directed to a user who is sharing a referral code. For example, the offer text added in the mobile home page card below is “Refer a friend and get rewards!”
  
• Share Message – The message sent to a user who is being referred (via mobile and web apps). For example, the share message in the image below is “This is a test message.”
  
• Offer Terms URL – URL that navigates the user to offer terms and conditions.

Tracking Referrals

Any URL parameters that are successfully written to the core will be visible in the application view of the Admin Platform. You can also track applications and referral codes using the reports listed below.

Tracking from the Application View

To track referrals from the application view:

1.  From the Admin Platform sidebar, select Account opening > Applications, then select a specific application to view its details.
2. On the scrollable sidebar that opens, scroll to the Accounts and funding section to view the applicant's Referral code.
   
3. If your institution configured URL parameters, scroll to the Metadata section where you can see the key and value displayed.

Tracking from Reports

To track referrals from reports:

1. From the Admin Platform sidebar, select Reports.
   
   
2. Under the Reports menu, select from the following reports containing referral information:
   • Consumer Account Applications – This report lists all consumer applications submitted through the Account Opening product and contains parameter values in the "metadata" column and referral codes in the "referral code" column
   • Business Account Applications  – This report lists all business applications submitted through the Account Opening product and contains parameter values in the "metadata" column and referral codes in the "referral code" column
   • Staffer-Led Account Applications – This report lists all staff-led applications submitted through the Account Opening product and contains parameter values in the "metadata" column and referral codes in the "referral code" column
   • Referral Codes – This report provides a list of referral codes and their corresponding core user ID
   • Referred Applications – This report provides a list of successfully referred applications through the Account Opening product
3. Select Download next to the report name to download the *.CSV file.