One of the ways the owner grows its platform is by inviting each new customer to participate in a referral program. I wanted to connect the payment processing, reference software and email platform. Unfortunately, the solution often used in situations like this could not make it happen. Enter Xano.
Background
The platform is a membership acquisition and automation system used by gym owners. It uses cutting-edge marketing automation techniques to get people who are already on a gym’s website to actually try the gym.
One of the ways the owner grows it is by inviting each new customer to participate in a referral program.
The challenge
“We offer a 30-day free trial,” they share, “so when a customer signs up, they’re already very excited about the results they’re getting. For our referral program, we really want to catch people at that moment, when they are encouraged. But our manual process for setting up the referral program for new customers was so time-consuming that it often took us a week or so to get to it.”
When he first considered automating the setup of referrals for new customers, he encountered obstacles. I wanted to connect the payment processing, reference software and email platform. Unfortunately, the solution often used in situations like this could not make it happen.
Solution
He learned about Xano, the no-code back-end platform that can connect any software program via an API integration. Although he was initially concerned about whether Xano would have as many bugs as other no-code programs he had had experience with in the past, he quickly discovered that Xano is “well developed and super reliable.”
With no technical background, he hired an experienced Xano user to help him develop his automation. In just one hour during a Zoom call, the initial version was completed, something that would have taken a developer two days to code from scratch! Later, he spent another hour adding additional functions on his own.
Now all the team has to do is set up a new client for payment processing and the automation takes over from there. The customer is added as a promoter in your referral software, a custom referral affiliate link is created, an email is sent and then another email is sent two days later. These emails explain the referral program, provide the affiliate link and offer a special recurring royalty rate of 33% for the first 30 days. Then, 30 days later, the customer automatically switches to a 20% recurring royalty program, thanks to Xano’s “Tasks” feature.
Results
He is delighted that Xano has made possible something that was not possible before. Using Xano to automate the setup of their referral program and the invitation process has saved the team a great deal of time. In addition, between the fact that emails are now sent immediately and the added incentive for participants to start recommending the platform to others in the first 30 days, the entire program is now significantly more successful.
The advice for other business owners who are considering developing an application or automating a process: “You can hire a developer to write code, or you can simply use Xano to do what you want to do. Using Xano will be much more economical and, if you ever want to make a change, you can do it yourself. So why not try that first?”
