Capture partner, referred account, reason for fit, relationship history, consent, urgency, and requested introduction. Keep sensitive details out of open notes.
Confirm ownership
Assign one internal owner and a response target. Send a neutral receipt and escalate account conflicts instead of silently reassigning.
Measure the relationship
Report accepted referrals, contact attempts, qualified conversations, and outcomes by partner. Use patterns to improve enablement.
Protect relationship context
Record how the partner knows the account, requested introduction, and whether contact was agreed. A domain match is not consent. Keep sensitive notes restricted and escalate ownership conflicts.
Measure follow-through
Review stages from received through outcome. High submissions with poor acceptance may indicate weak fit or unclear expectations. Share process feedback, but never promise an outcome from an individual referral. Test a partner referral intake process with one referral that has complete context and another with missing context. Confirm consent, relationship owner, customer need, source attribution, and the response path before accepting the referral.
Give the partner a clear status without promising an outcome the business has not approved. Review referral quality by source after the first group, then adjust the intake fields or partner guidance based on observed gaps.
