Bring back past clients automatically
“Clients come in once or twice and then drift away, and I don't have time to personally reach out to hundreds of people.”
Lead Management
Know who is actually sending you referrals
“People say they were referred but I have no idea by whom, so I never thank anyone.”
The short answer
Add one required question at booking asking how they heard about you, and store the answer on the client record where you will actually see it again. Referrals are usually the largest source of new business and the least measured. Knowing who sends people lets you thank them by name, which costs nothing and is what produces the next referral.
- ~1 hour/week back (estimated)
- 20 minutes to set up
- Easy difficulty
How we estimated that: Assumes an hour a week currently spent trying to reconstruct where clients came from. This is a model, not a measurement — check it against your own numbers, because if the assumption does not match your business the figure will not either.
What you'll need
- Your booking system or intake form
A required "how did you hear about us" field costs nothing and is where most of this lives.
We have not checked this tool's pricing ourselves yet, so we are not quoting it. Confirm current cost with the vendor. - Google Forms free
Works if your booking system cannot add a custom field.
Pricing checked 2026-08-02 — source. - Your CRM
Store the answer against the client record so it survives past the first visit.
We have not checked this tool's pricing ourselves yet, so we are not quoting it. Confirm current cost with the vendor.
We are not paid by any tool listed here. If a cheaper or better option exists, that's what you'll see.
Pricing above was checked on 2026-08-02. 2 of these 3 entries is still unverified. Vendors change their terms without notice, and free tiers do get withdrawn. We take no money from any vendor listed here. If something on this page is out of date, tell us and we will correct it.
How to set it up
- Add one required question at booking or intake
'How did you hear about us?' with a free-text box. Required, or roughly half will skip it.
- Ask for a name, not just a category
'Referral' tells you nothing you can act on. 'Referred by — who?' gives you a person to thank.
- Put the answer on the client record
Not in a form response you never reopen. It should be visible the next time you look them up.
- Thank the referrer within the week
A message naming who they sent. This is the entire mechanism — recognition is what produces the second referral.
- Review the list monthly
Five minutes. You are looking for the handful of people who refer repeatedly, because they are worth treating differently.
Common questions
- Should I pay people for referrals?
- Not at first, and in some regulated settings paying for patient referrals is restricted — check before you offer anything. Recognition alone works, and it never creates a compliance problem.
- What does this cost?
- Nothing. It is a form field and a habit.
- What if people put vague answers?
- Then the question is doing its job badly. Split it into a dropdown plus a name box rather than one open field.
Last reviewed 2026-08-01. Tools change — if something here is out of date, tell us and we'll fix it.
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