In the home services world, service areas and offerings often overlap. About 20% of Baton referrals involve an existing customer relationship between the referring and receiving companies. To make those exchanges safe and mutually beneficial, Baton created Pledge to Protect.
When you opt in, you signal to other members that you’ll respect their customer relationships—giving them the confidence to send you high-converting, trust-based referrals.
How It Works
On your Baton profile, you can choose one of two options:
Pledge to Protect – We will train our team to respect any existing customer relationships referred to us and represent the referring company well.
Opt Out – We’d rather not take current-customer referrals at this time.
Agreeing opens the door to that valuable 20% of referrals. Opting out is fine—some companies (especially large ones) choose not to invest in the extra training.
What Happens If You Break the Pledge
If you agree to the Pledge to Protect and poach a referred customer (intentionally or by mistake), you are responsible for either returning the customer to the referring company, or compensating them for the loss. If not, Baton may remove the pledge from your profile.
Why Avoiding All Referrals Can Backfire
Some companies avoid referring customers to competitors altogether:
“We don’t want our customers poached”… “We don’t want to associate our brand with anyone.”
But if you don’t guide your customer to a trusted partner, you risk coming across as unhelpful (“Aren’t you my pest control company?”). In most cases, they’ll turn to Google—where they may land with a bigger, more aggressive competitor.
By opting into the Pledge to Protect, you:
Keep customers within a trusted network
Build goodwill with partners
Boost the odds that those partners send business back your way