The following section is a technical overview of the Refer-a-Friend feature and describes the Administrator activities and working methodology of the functionality.
Administrators need to consider the following points to use the Refer-a-Friend feature.
Adding Links to the Content
Connect provides flexibility to indicate the location and text displayed for the Refer-a-Friend link. Content Administrators must insert a Refer-a-Friend merge field in the desired location to add a Refer-a-Friend link. For more information about adding links to the content, please see Tips For Creating Links.
Customizing the Default Forms
Connect provides a sample Refer-a-Friend form and Thank-You page, which can be customized. For more information about customizing the pages, please see Creating and Managing Content.
Configuring System Parameters
Connect provides a set of system parameters, which allows Administrators to configure the Refer-a-Friend feature. For more information about configuring the system parameters, please see Managing System Parameters.
The following steps describe in detail the technical overview of the Refer-a-Friend feature.
- The customer receives an email message from Connect.
- Subsequently, the customer clicks the Refer-a-Friend link in the message. The
Tracker receives the request.
- The Tracker identifies the request and presents the referral detail form to the customer.
- After filling up the form with referral details, such as first name, middle
name, last name, email address, and forwarding note, the customer submits the
form.
- The first name and email address fields are mandatory. Content Designers must ensure that appropriate client side validations are available in the form to prevent invalid requests reaching the Connect Tracker.
- The Tracker accepts the forwarded request and sends a Thank-You page to the customer.
- The Tracker parses and sends the referral information to the Profiler through storage log entries.
- The Profiler updates the referral data in the Connect database. Refer to the following table for more information on the updates to the Connect database.
| Customer with Same Email Address exists in Connect Database | Customer Already Subscribed to the Conversation | Customer Already Received an email for the Same Campaign | Action |
|---|---|---|---|
| Yes | Yes | Yes | New customer will not be created.New subscription will not be created.New email will not be sent to referral.Referral_History will be updated. |
| Yes | Yes | No | New customer will not be created.New subscription will not be created.New email will be sent to referral (except referrals through Event-Triggered campaigns). Referral_History will be updated. |
| Yes | No | No | New customer will not be created.New subscription will be created for the referral based on the system parameter “Subscribe referred customer?”New email will be sent to referral (except referrals through Event-Triggered campaigns). Referral_History will be updated. |
| No | No | No | New customer will be created.New subscription will be created for the referral based on the system parameter “Subscribe referred customer?”New email will be sent to referral (except referrals through Event-Triggered campaigns). Referral_History will be updated. |
- The Conversation Manager picks up the referral data and sends a request to the Mail Sender.
- The Mail Sender receives a send request from the Conversation Manager. The Mail Sender adds ‘FW:’ prefix to the subject line and the forwarding note to the top of the email content.
- The Mail Sender sends the email message to the referral.
Connect updates the referral result in the REFERRAL_HISTORY table. Following are the error codes and their descriptions. Error codes less than 100 are considered successful referrals and error codes greater than 100 are considered unsuccessful referrals.
| Result_code | Description |
|---|---|
| 1 | REFFERAL_ACCEPTED_AND_SUBSCRIBED |
| 2 | PREEXISTING_CUSTOMER_NOW_SUBSCRIBED |
| 3 | PREEXISTING_CUSTOMER_ALREADY_ SUBSCRIBED |
| 4 | PREEXISTING_CUSTOMER_NOT_SUBSCRIBED |
| 5 | REFERRAL_ACCEPTED_NOT_SUBSCRIBED |
| 101 | DATABASE_CONNECTION_ERROR |
| 102 | INVALID_REFERRER_INFORMATION: This may occur for one of the following reasons: If the referring customer is not a Connect customer or the referring customer’s email address is different If the referring instance_id is invalidFor this instance_id, the campaign will be null. |
| 103 | INVALID_REFERRAL_INFORMATION: This may occur if the referral first name or email address is either null or an empty string. |
| 999 | UNKNOWN_ERROR |
