Everyone likes to feel appreciated. This is true for your customers as well. Even a small gesture of thanks can go a long way in helping to make customers feel valued.
One thing that will set your company apart from your competitors, is the positive feeling customers get from doing business with you. Taking the initiative to show customer appreciation when it isn’t required can go a long way towards communicating to customers how important they are to your business.
In every type of business, there are little ways to say thanks. Often first contacts are made with the receptionist, sales or support team members. Whether your business is a medical office, a bank, a fitness center, a retail store, or another type of company, every customer contact point reinforces the things that make your business unique.
JAN-PRO greatly appreciates the business we receive from our customers. Since our work is done at night after hours, our franchisee owners leave notes for our customers letting them know if there are any things they should be aware of in the building. These communication logs help us to stay in touch and share information that may not have been noticed by their staff during business hours.
At JAN-PRO, we provide the checklist of cleaning services and ask for feedback on a regular basis informally from our Quality Assurance team or external surveys. We try to help our customers with tips on keeping the facility clean and ways to avoid the spread of bacteria, especially during flu season. Here are three other ideas to get you started.
Provide useful information. No matter whether you work for a financial organization or provide janitorial cleaning services, offer your customers additional money or time saving tips that go above and beyond the necessary advice required to do your job. They will most likely be grateful for your willingness to share the additional knowledge and encouraged to do business with you again in the future.
Reward loyalty. Businesses sometimes have a tendency to focus on new customers, but it is the existing customers that you should truly be thanking. Don’t forget to send your customers personal notes from time to time thanking them for their business.
Hold a customer appreciation event. This could entail offering free sub sandwiches at your automobile dealership one Saturday a month, offering a free Saturday morning yoga class on New Year’s Day or holding an annual golf competition. All ideas encourage interaction with your customers, along with a bit of fun.
The bottom line here is to find a way to say thank you to your customers and mean it when you do.