The challenge: win new NLT contracts without raising the cost per customer
Long-term rental is a highly competitive sector. The cost of winning new contracts through traditional channels — digital advertising, trade shows, outbound campaigns — kept rising, with diminishing returns. The sales team spent hours every week on manual follow-up, with a close rate that was hard to improve.
The company did have an underused asset: a satisfied customer base, with contracts active for years, that was already recommending the service informally to colleagues and friends. What was missing was a tool to structure, track and reward that word of mouth in a systematic way.
"Our customers were already bringing us new customers — but we had no way to thank it, track it or incentivise it. It was an opportunity we were wasting every day."
The need was clear: create a referral program that was simple for the customer to use, automated in how it was run and measurable in its results, without lengthy training for the internal team.
The solution they chose: "Invita e Vinci", the Member Get Member designed for rental
After an analysis phase, the company chose the Member Get Member module of Marta Platform to build the "Invita e Vinci" program. Marta was chosen for these main reasons:
- Turnkey: no custom development, no complex integration. The platform runs the customer web app, the back office, communications and rewards in a single environment.
- Very low operational load: the team only has to update the status of invited customers from the portal — everything else (communications, reward calculation, tracking) is automated.
- Measurability: every invitation, every completed step, every signed contract is tracked and tied to the promoter who generated it.
The program was configured with a clear goal: the promoting customer who completes the invitation mission and gets friends to sign an NLT contract wins a reward of real value (configurable: in this case, a latest-generation iPhone).
How the referral program works for long-term car rental
The promoting customer: from receiving the message to inviting a friend
The program starts with a communication the company sends to every customer with an active contract. The message contains a personalised link to the "Invita e Vinci" web app.
The interested customer clicks the link and, to get in, verifies their phone number with an OTP code. No registration, no password to remember: access is immediate.
Once inside, the promoting customer sees their mission — how many friends they need to turn into NLT customers — and can start inviting their contacts straight away. The system generates a unique link for each invitee, so there is no way to mix up who gets the credit.
The invited customer: from the link to a signed NLT contract
The invitee receives a message from the promoting friend, with a dedicated link. Through that link they can:
- Register as a potential customer, entering their basic personal details.
- Book an appointment with the company's sales team directly from the form — choosing the date and time.
- Or, alternatively, say they would like an operator to call them back.
Every action the invitee takes has a precise status in the state machine and automatically updates the progress of the promoter's mission:
The team updates statuses from the back office — for example, marking that an appointment ended with a signed contract. No integration with other CRMs is needed: one click is enough.
Automatic communications: how to keep the promoter engaged for the whole mission
One of the critical points of a referral program is the promoter's interest dropping after the first invitations. Marta solves this with a system of automatic, contextual communications: every time an invitee moves forward a status, the promoter receives a personalised message that celebrates the progress and reminds them of the final reward.
The messages are not simple notifications: they are designed as engagement boosters, with a motivating tone and a direct reference to the goal (e.g. "Marco has booked the appointment — you're moving forward in your mission, the reward is close!").
The system automates the whole communication sequence. The team does not have to send anything by hand: every message at the right moment, to the right customer, with no operational effort.
This approach produced a mission completion rate significantly higher than traditional referral programs based on generic emails, where the promoter forgets they joined within a few days.
The back office: managing appointments and NLT contracts with no specialist training
Marta's back-office portal was designed to be operational from day one, even for non-technical staff. The rental company trained the team quickly.
Appointment planner
- A calendar view of the appointments booked by invitees
- The name of the invited customer and of the referring promoter
- The option to update the status directly from the record
- Filters by date, promoter and status
Customer records
- Promoter profile: a list of every invited customer, with status and mission progress
- Invitee profile: the invited customer's details, the status history and the referring promoter
- A customer can be both a promoter and an invitee — the back office shows both records
Customer search is by phone number: in a few moments the operator has the customer's full history inside the referral program in front of them, with no need to consult Excel sheets or other systems.
Results: more NLT contracts, an engaged customer, a team free from manual operations
With the "Invita e Vinci" program, the long-term rental company achieved meaningful results on every front.
The most meaningful result for the sales team was the reduction in operational load: no manual handling of invitations, no communications to send, no reward calculations to do. The system worked on its own, leaving the team free to focus on the quality appointments generated by the referral.
- The automatic motivational messages kept promoter engagement high for the whole length of the mission.
- Promoting customers started inviting their contacts within the first few weeks.
- Invitees who booked an appointment converted into signed contracts, on a path tracked end to end.
- Several invited customers then enrolled as promoters themselves, creating a cascade effect of acquisition.
"We didn't think a program this simple to run could produce results like these. Our customers turned out to be our best sales channel."
Why a long-term rental company chooses Marta Platform for referral
The NLT sector has specific traits that make Member Get Member particularly effective:
- A long customer lifecycle: someone who has already held an active contract for a while knows the service well and knows what to recommend to a friend.
- Considered purchase decisions: an NLT contract takes evaluation, an appointment and advice. A friend's referral lowers the initial hesitation and speeds up conversion.
- High contract value: the LTV of an NLT customer justifies a reward that can be significant for the promoter, while keeping CAC well below traditional channels.
- A professional network: NLT customers often work in a company and spend time in places where other potential NLT customers are easy to reach.
Marta Platform adapted to these specifics: the status state machine (Registered → Appointment → Contract signed) maps the NLT sales cycle cleanly, and the back office fits naturally into the sales team's workflow.