Introduction
There may be instances where you want to cancel a referral that has occurred in your referral program. This article will explain how you can cancel a referral to prevent abuse of the referral program.
Overview
What happens when you cancel a referral
If you detect that a referral may be fraudulent, you can cancel it in the Referrals section (Smile Admin > Programs > Activity > Referrals)
Cancelling a pending referral
A referral is marked pending when an Advocate’s Friend has entered their email to claim their referral reward code, but has not yet placed an order with their code.
Cancelling a referral in the pending state will:
Prevent the Advocate from receiving a referral code if the Friend places an order.
Mark the reward code that has been issued to the Friend as cancelled in the customer Panel. They will not be able to copy this code from the Panel.
For Shopify merchants, Shopify discount codes generated by Smile for the Friend will be voided so they can no longer be used.
Cancelling a completed referral
A referral is marked completed when an Advocate’s Friend has entered their email to claim their referral code and the Friend has placed an order.
Cancelling a referral in the completed state will:
Cancel the Advocate and Friend’s reward code.
Adjust the points balance for the Friend and Advocate if they earned points for the referral.
For Shopify merchants, reward codes generated by Smile for the Advocate and Friend will be voided
How to cancel a referral
Navigate to the customer who's referral you would like to cancel, and select Cancel Referral:
Once you’ve cancelled a referral it will be moved to the cancelled referrals column in your All Referrals grid.
📝 Smile Pro Tip: A referral cancellation cannot be undone, so make sure you’ve selected the right referral before you cancel.
There are three instances where a referral will automatically be cancelled by Smile:
If you remove a customer from your program, any of their pending referrals will be cancelled.
If a customer is deleted, any of their pending referrals will be cancelled.
If an order is refunded, any referrals associated with that order will be cancelled.
What's next?
Referral program overview
Learn more