Everyone values their customers in words. How many of us really put those words into action? What if you declared 2012 your Year For Your Customer?
What if you decided to make sure your customers forever remember how much you appreciated their business? I am not talking about an occasional dinner or golf trip. Think something a little more remarkable. Here are a few ideas.
1) Select your top 12 customers and your top 12 potential customers and designate a month to each one.
2) Have a day at your headquarters where invite not their buyer but their sales force. Celebrate their efforts and ask them to share what you could do better to serve them. Let your entire company participate.
2) Better yet, host a party at their place to celebrate their relationship with you.
3) Ask your clients what you can do to help their business or their lives and then spend some resources actually helping them.
4) Write some testimonials to their customers about how much you think of them.
5) Share your best employee motivation practices and/or ask for a project you could work on for them at no charge.
6) Find out what event(s) are attractive to the first tier employees of your customer and send them some tickets unannounced.
By now I am sure you’ve thought of better fitting ideas for your best customers. What I am suggesting is that your treat your customers like you do your friends. Friends do things for each other without keeping score. Traditional thinking would dictate that businesses always keep score. As a CPA/MBA I understand.
Treating businesses like friends is remarkable. Remarkable leads to remarks and those lead to referrals. So quit keeping traditional score and see if your scoreboard lights up anyway. Now that’s an April 1st idea.