Every referral record involves at least two parties: the contact being referred (the Referred Contact) and the contact who is either the sender or the receiver of the referral (the Referring Party). Once added, you can track all aspects of the referral from the Referrals Summary, accessible from within the Contacts menu.
All parties tracked in a referral must exist as a Contact in your Top Producer database. If they do not yet exist, entering their information during the Add Referral process will automatically create the contact records for you.
From the Main Menu bar, hover over Contacts and click Add Referral.
Referred Contact
Use the Referred Contact area to enter the contact information of the person that is being referred.
Use the Referral Source pulldown to select the source that produced this referral. This is different than the Referring Party, and can be used to categorize your referrals – such as by the initial contact method or by the reason for the referral. For example, the referral may have been requested via your website, or is taking place due to a corporate relocation. If you would like to add a new referral source, click the Add link.
If the contact does not yet exist in your database, enter their Name and Primary Contact Method in the fields provided. When the referral is created, a new contact record for them will also be created. If this contact already exists in your database, locate them in the contact list on the right of the page, then left-click and drag them into the Referred Contact area.
Tip: If necessary, you add more than one referred contact to a single referral record. For more information, see Adding Additional Contacts to a Referral.
Referring Party
The Referring Party section allows you to specify the direction of the referral and who the referring party is.
First, select the Direction of the referral. Select Referred By when you have received a referred contact from someone else. Select Referred To when you have referred a contact to someone else.
If the referring party does not yet exist in your database, enter their information in the fields provided and a new contact record will be created when the referral is saved. If they are already in your database, locate them in the contact list on the right of the page, then left-click and drag them into the Referring Party area.
Referral Management
In the Referral Management section, enter the details of the Referral.
- Referral #: If you have a tracking number associated with this referral, enter it here. This could be from your own tracking system or a number provided by the referring party.
- Referral Date: Enter the date on which the referral took place.
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Referral Fee: Use the pull-down menu to select either a fixed dollar amount or percentage, then enter the fee amount into the field. Alternatively, you can click Calculate based on % and enter a commission amount and percentage. Clicking Calculate will then add a fixed-dollar amount as the Referral Fee based on the information you provided.
- Apply Action Plan to Referred Contacts: Use the pull-down menu to select an action plan to apply, then specify the plan Start Date. Action plans are one of the most powerful tools available in Top Producer. It is recommended that you apply an action plan to all new incoming referrals to maximize your conversion rate.
- Note field: You can use the Note field to enter any additional comments or information regarding this referral.
To save the referral and display the Referrals Summary screen, click the Add Referral button. To save the referral and display the detailed Referral Record, click the Save & Add More Details button.