Tell-A-Friend Program Scores Big Results

By Joe Swatek

If your bank or credit union isn’t using a Tell-A-Friend (TAF) program, this story could change your mind.

A community bank went through ACTON Marketing’s training program for the financial institutions that use our customer acquisition strategy. As usual for these sessions, the staff learned about the TAF program and heard hints and ideas they could use to promote the customer-as-advocate system.

During the three months that followed, the program was a big success. TAFs accounted for nearly one-fifth of the new checking accounts the bank opened. Easy, easy, easy promotion. The bank didn’t need to hunt for those new customers or reach out to them. The bank’s current customers did the recruiting.

Count up the number of new accounts your financial institution opened the last quarter of 2012.What if you added 20% more? How big is that number? Impressive, right?

You can read more about Tell-A-Friends and how they work by following the links at the bottom of this post. But before I close, I want to tell you “the rest of the story,” as the popular newscaster Paul Harvey would say.

As added incentive, the branches at this bank were challenged. The office that gave out the coupons that resulted in the most new checking account openings during the quarter would be treated to a free lunch.

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