Do you use referrals?

[grandpa]

I have an idea that I would like to offer my customers
a discount for new referrals. What seemed like a great
idea 3 hours ago is now holding the upper hand in a battle
of wits.

I thought I'd try to get some ideas about what directions
I need to follow. I have access to forms processing, mysql
and auto responders, and when I started I thought I could cobble something together... I couldn't :)

What should I be looking at to make this work?

Thanks
grandpa

<edit added>
To define what I think would work -
1) Customer sign up.
2) Issue referral code to customer?
3) New customer uses code on an order.
4) Referring Customer gets discount on next order.

Seems pretty easy..
<end edit>

[divaone]

perhaps try an affiliate program? there are scripts which allow you to set your own program up and have people sign up and refer others. (both perl and php scripts available)

[grandpa]

perhaps try an affiliate program?

My density factor increases tenfold when I think affilite program :-) Someday I'll figure it all out..

there are scripts which allow you to set your own program up and have people sign up and refer others.

I suspect this is more of what I'm looking for. I know that picking one script over another is a matter of taste and style, so I won't bother asking which ones... but I'm still at the same place I was last night - trying to understand the things that need to happen for a referral program to be successful.

I want my customer, John J. Joe to be able to refer his friend Mary K. Doe. This will require some sort of tracking number that will tie both of them together. Then when Mary makes a purchase, John gets the goodies. I'm thinking a Perl script will be the easiest solution to handle that
part, taking the 'next available' number or creating a unique number with the date/time information.
But this information will be stored on my server, and going past that it looks like I'll have to manually process everything... entries to the accounting system, matching customers to sales, etc.

This is OK for me, but I'd like to set something up that will still work if I'm not here to do everything. I'll go have a look around at some options on the web, maybe the ideas will get flowing.

thanks
grandpa

[Cianna]

Grandpa:
I've run across something like what you are looking for in my own search. It's inexpensive and might work for you. I'd be happy to sticky you with the url (since I'm not sure if it's okay to post it here). It's a Perl/CGI script, I believe.

Cianna