Whaleback Systems launches Customer Referral Program 20 July, 2008 By Vanessa Ho

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"When growing a business like Whaleback and when you sell through channel partners, where do you find your new sources of business?" wondered Dave Zwicker, vice-president of marketing for Whaleback.

He discovered that it doesn't come from traditional marketing methods like direct mail, e-mail, banner ads or telemarketing but something much simpler.

"The one approach that blows everything else out of the water is referrals," said Zwicker. "SMBs like to hear from their peers. They don't look where they last got an e-mail blast from but look to a referral from someone."

He added that all of Whaleback's channel partners grew their business organically through customer referrals.

"Having learned that, we decided to make a program that formalized [the referral process]," explained Zwicker.

To participate in the Whaleback Customer Referral Program, any person that knows of any SMBs looking for a new IP telephony system for their organization, can go to Whaleback's homepage and click on the referral link and fill out a one-page form. If that customer signs-up with Whaleback for its CrystalBlue Voice Service, the person that made the referral gets a $500 cash reward. For the company that was referred, they receive $500 off their first month's phone bill. "For some customers that could be their whole first month," said Zwicker.

If the person that made the referral happens to be an employee of a Whaleback customer then that company receives $500 off their phone bill or they can donate it to a charity of their choice. There are no limits to the number of referrals or reward money a person or their company can accumulate.

"A customer who makes multiple referrals can accrue service credits and might not be paying their phone bill for four to five months," Zwicker noted.

He added that if a referral came from someone that was not an employee of a Whaleback customer, then that third $500 can also be donated to a charity of their choice.

Prior to the Customer Referral Program, Whaleback received about 1000 telephone station referrals a month. Since the start of the program, the number of referrals has more than doubled. Zwicker hopes to hold on to that rate of growth throughout the rest of the year.