Are Your Customers Feeling the Love?
Valentine’s Day is come and gone, but customers expect every day to be Valentine’s Day, don’t they? Are you giving your customers the love? If not, they may be looking elsewhere — especially these days, when companies are under lots and lots of pressure to buy cheaper and cut costs at all cost.
How do you show customers the love? How do you make them feel special, and feel especially happy to be doing business with you?
Surprise is a nice way to show the love. Ever try any of these?
- Send your customer a “thank you for the business” card — personally written — for no reason.
- Give your customer a courtesy discount just for being a good customer.
- Ask your customer out of the blue, “How are we doing? What can we do better?”
- Give your customer a really good sales lead or referral.
- Refer your customer to a supplier in a totally unrelated area just because it might be a good fit.
We’re not talking rocket science here. These are mere gestures, but worth their weight in gold if you offer them sincerely and with the element of surprise. I guess what I’m saying is, don’t be predictable. If you and your customer are in a rut, if there are never any nice surprises, where is the romance? Pay attention to this stuff, or you may end up one romantic evening watching your customer glide down the river in a gondola, arm in arm with your competitor!
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Hi Brad, thanks for the Valentine’s follow up, long after blogging attention has moved elsewhere.
It’s a good reminder to pay attention to the little things all year round, not just one day in the year.
Joanna
Joanna, timing is everything!
Great post and great points, Brad!
Jeanne
Hi Brad
If your customers are mainly large companies, it may be hard for you to feel any kind of romance or love toward them.
Seriously, though, implementing some of the steps you describe will help distinquish your company from the rest in the minds of your customers.
Cheers
Andrew
Andrew, it’s interesting what you say about big companies. All it takes is one employee with a bad attitude to turn off a customer from an otherwise good company.
Exactly right, Brad.
All employees of a company are ambassadors for the company.
The actions and attitudes of employees is a critical factor in determining the perception of the company held by external stakeholders.
Companies should not forget this during the hiring process, and should seek to hire only employees with a bright, positive and enthusiastic attitude.
Cheers
Andrew