How would you rate your customer relations efforts? Do you feel like you show gratitude on a regular basis to customers who choose to work with YOU? The best time to give a customer loyalty gifts is whenever appreciation strikes.
Expressing gratitude can bond you with customers, which is essential to long-term retention. When you build relationships with customers, you also build loyalty, which helps your business prosper.
“You don’t earn loyalty in a day. You earn loyalty day-by-day.”
– Jeffrey Gitomer
Showing Customers Gratitude = Retention
Attracting a new customer is far more expensive than retaining an existing one. By expressing gratitude, you are positively impacting the bottom line.
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Cost Ratio: Depending on the industry, it can cost anywhere from five to twenty-five times more to acquire a new customer than to retain an existing one, according to Harvard Business Review.
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Profit Increase: Research by Frederick Reichheld of Bain & Company (the inventor of the net promoter score) shows that increasing customer retention rates by just 5% can boost profits by a range of 25% to 95%.
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Sales Success Rates: Outbound Engine states that it’s also much easier to sell to existing customers. The success rate of selling to a customer you already have is 60-70%, whereas the success rate of selling to a new customer is only 5-20%.
Customer Loyalty Begins with Relationships
There are many ways to bond with customers and learn more about them. Here are some suggestions:
- Introduce yourself and learn customer names. Greet customers by name and understand their role.
- Conduct a brief survey to identify customers’ wants and needs. To encourage responses, offer a small gift for those who return surveys — maybe a helpful e-book you’ve written, a discount or a gift certificate.
- Use your social media accounts to keep customer loyalty strong. Ask questions about how your product works for them or what new services they’d like you to offer.
- Delight customers with an unexpected small token of your appreciation when they visit your store or service.
- Send a handwritten thank you note after customers consider your business or service. It’s a cost-effective gift that can be both personal and memorable.
- Express your appreciation by sending customer loyalty gifts with your sincere note of thanks. It doesn’t have to be an expensive gift – consider a gift certificate for pie, ice cream or sweet treats.
Any positive interaction with customers helps build relationships!
gThankYou Resources
At gThankYou, we offer a variety of resources to help make gift-giving and appreciation easy!
Pulled from our “Ultimate Employee Gift-Giving Guide” everyone wants to be valued and appreciated, but here are some pitfalls to avoid when gifting to anyone, including customers:
1. Do nothing. Why would there be any customer loyalty when they don’t feel truly appreciated?
2. Waste time. It’s common to lose time trying to think of a clever, perfect customer gift. However, they generally don’t want another corporate chotchke with the company logo. Give them something today that they can use!
3. Achieve little or no memory value. Find a gift that’s strongly related with your company values and expresses your gratitude. Customers will remember the gesture way beyond the life of the gift.
Start today by outlining a customer loyalty budget, decide what they would appreciate, and take action!
Learn More About gThankYou Certificates and Vouchers:
- Check out our Home Page
- See all our Gift Certificate Choices
- Learn more About gThankYou and FAQs
- See our FREE customizable Gratitude cards
- Reach us at 888-484-1658 or via info@gthankyou.com
Top Photo by Cytonn Photography on Unsplash
Thanks Photo by Manuel Cosentino on Unsplash
