With red paper hearts littered all over the floor, piles of exquisite chocolate treats dripping from the counter and the stench of flowers all-embracing, we felt like we’d walked into a celebrity’s dressing room.
Banners hung from the wall with personal messages of adoration and as a gentle breeze wafted the paper hearts aside, we saw Hollywood-esque stars of fame on the floor. It didn’t take long to find my name. Stunned into silence, I just turned slowly on the spot drinking it all in, a smile slowly stretching across my face.
When was the last time you made your customers feel that amazing? Would you like your people to feel dazzled every time they leave your place?
For the last few weeks, two people have joined forces to inspire you and me to love our customers. Using Twitter to collect like minded folk under the hash tag #customerlove, they’ve been making a difference in their little corner of the Internet.
After being dazzled to learn that your customer’s favourite word is their own name (so that’s why store assistants are told to call me Mrs Edwards after I pay with my debit card? Makes me feel about 60. I really wish they’d stop!) I decided to save you some time and explored some of the brilliant things being done in the name of customer love.
Try them for yourself and prepare to see your customers swoon.
Customer love co-consirator Lavonne Ellis highlighted the power of being extra-especially kind to the people who have been generous enough to share their contact details with you.
Got a new product? Give your list first crack at enjoying your offering and help them feel amazing by giving them a special discount.
When was the last time you took a few moments to personally write to or email your customers? Imagine how amazing you’d feel if you received a hand written letter from your local car dealer after making a purchase. How valued would you feel?
Instead of those dull, dry circulars, why not think about how you can add the personal touch to your communications with your customers?
You’re on Twitter right? If not, why not? (Or maybe that’s s whole other post?!) This is quick, free and easy. If you have an online based business, use your profile on Twitter to make a fuss over your customers. Be genuine, warm and sincere and they’ll love you forever.
Early on in the challenge, one brilliant Customer Lover, Bridget Pilloud added a new service to her website. You really have to check this out for yourself but known as the ‘bitch box’, this unusual offering provided a way to moan and complain without unleashing it on the world.
If you want to show your customers you love them (and have them falling over themselves to give you their hard earned green ones) start thinking outside the box. Instead of sticking to the usual tried and tested methods, try something new. Write them a poem, send them some chocolates, remember their birthday. OK, that sounds like something out of ‘how to woo you lady’ but start using your imagination and you will find something awesome to do.
Think free can never earn you money? Go and talk to Catherine Caine and come back and we can talk. Not only will your customers love you, offering your time for free can be a great business strategy. If you have a new service, free trials and mini-versions can be a great way to get awesome testimonials but it doesn’t stop at that. Your freebie will so dazzle your customer, they’ll do all they can to invest in more of you the next time they need your service.
This is another great customer love tip where the only investment is time. Lovely Linda Eaves spent time writing recommendations for some of her customers. Not only is this yet another great way to show your customers you care, it has the potential to be a way to increase your own reputation. Every time someone receives a recommendation, they are encouraged to write one in return.
I’m not suggesting you write recommendations for the sole purpose of getting kind words back. That’s not what loving your customers about. But hey, if you get a little back, that’s just an added bonus isn’t it?
And now it’s your turn. What can you do to show your customers you love and appreciate them?
this is the best idea for telling the customers how imporatant they are and how much they love their customers..
saying thank you is always good. great list you have here and definitely a must-try tactics for keeping customers.
from my blog:
When You Say "Thank You"
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This post is really timely for me. Thanks. I am soon to monetize my blog and have been thinking of ways to reward my loyal visitors to my blog; especially those in the blogging community who have helped this newbie blogger and done techie tasks that I find so hard to do. Want to give them a few surprise gifts and you have now given me even more ideas. I'm stoked.
Patricia Perth Australia
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I nowadays believe that another one of the forms to say " I love you" to a customer, is to count with the figure of comunity to manager. It is not enough with making presence in the social networks, is necessary to handle feed back of outside inwards!
When you go extra mile ..add humanity to your work and put emotional labor in your customer service, It sure will reflect in your efforts and customers will definitely spot it.
Thank you very much for this useful topic that explains the art of dealing with customers. It mentioned a lot of good tips for getting a successful and permanent online marketing . It is very great if a website owner does his best to cooperate with his customers that can be permanent buyers
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I love the idea of offering a simple freebie or special discount to loyal customers. You'd be surprised – an occasional 20% off or heads up, "insider" email before a new product goes live really impresses a lot of people. Good tips all around, thanks!
thanks El for the ideas! i loved Fiona's tip too.the whole thing reminds me of Dale Carnegie's book "how to win friends and influence people".The bottomline is -take care of our customers and they will take care of us! Once again thanks for giving me fresh ideas of showing love to my customers.
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Excellent tips! What I did for my repeat customers in a business I used to run was to give them freebies whenever they came. I also gave them special giveaway gifts (not just the usual stuff) during Christmas. Now that I'm running a food business, I'm thinking of creating a loyalty card but I'm still thinking up of ways on how to make it different from other loyalty cards other than discounts and collecting a certain number of "stamps" so that you can get a free drink or something.
Awesome tips, El – thank you for some new ideas!
Awesome tips to thank your customers. I always send chocolates… but nice ones! It's simple, and my customers are always very happy and surprised.
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Getting customers feed back and providing good support(by responding to messages promptly & keeping them Informed) to them always helps my business to grow more. Also, I think, in order to develop your business you should ask yourself as your own customer/client like this: ' what would I want from your business?' 'How can I stay comfortable?'. This way we can understand the needs of our customers and could move accordingly. What say?
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Reassure before, in between and after the sale that you take customer support seriously by providing easy access to your mail addresses, phone numbers and email addresses or comment from all pages. Then respond to their inquiries promptly.