Creating Referrals

Once a partner or vendor has been identified as the recipient of a particular referral request, you should create a Referrals record to track the communication between your organization and the partner vendor.
Follow these steps to create a referral:

1. Open a new Referrals record.
   • If you added a Referrals tab to the Referral Requests form (as described in Adding the Referrals Tab to Referral Requests), click the Referrals tab on the applicable Referral Requests record and click the New button in the toolbar.
   • Alternatively, you can create a new record from the Referrals service directly.
     
     
2. Enter the name of the company in the Partner field.
   • This is the partner to whom the organization is referring the customer or prospect (listed on the corresponding Referral Requests record). This partner should be one of the companies listed on the corresponding Referral Requests record's Vendors tab.
     
     
3. Enter the name of the contact person at the partner company in the Contact field.
4. Select the current Status of the referral (typically Pending or Sent).
   • Standard options include Pending, Sent, Accepted, Rejected, Responded, Selected and Cancelled. The default status for new records is Pending.
     
     
5. Specify the date on which the referral was sent to the specified partner in the Date Sent field. This field defaults to the current date for new records.
   
   
6. Click the Comments tab and add any applicable information concerning this referral.
7. Click the Source tab and specify the following fields as applicable: 
   • Referral Request: If this referral was generated by a referral request, enter the ID of that Referral Requests record in this field. Note that this field is automatically populated if you opened the new referral from the Referral Requests record.
   • Opportunity: If this referral was generated due to an active opportunity, enter that opportunity in this field. It links to the Opportunities service.
   • Campaign: If this referral was generated as the result of a marketing campaign, enter that campaign in this field. It links to the Campaigns service.
     
     
     
8. Save the Referrals record.
9. The organization submits the referral information to the partner. Later when the partner submits a response, the details of that response can be tracked on the Referral record's Partner Response tab. This field includes the following fields:
   
   • Date Partner Responded: The initial date the partner responded.
   • Total Price: The Total Price quoted by the partner to address the requirements described in the referral request.
   • Currency Type: This field specifies the currency in which the Total Price amount is expressed. This field links to the Currency Types service.
   • Response Summary: This field contains a summary of the information received from the partner in response to this request.

   

10. Also, if applicable, an organization can specify the date the partner's response was forwarded to the prospect in the Date Forwarded field on the Referrals record's General tab. This information is used with referral requests that have indirect or anonymous communication mode.
    
    
11. As the status of the referral changes, the organization can track its progress by updating the Referrals record's Status field as applicable.