Twenty Five Ways to Show Your Loyalty to Your Customers

 

Most customer relationships don't end in conflict.  Most vanilla to death.  Neglect is more dangerous than strife; indifference more costly than error.  Great relationships are fueled by affirmation.  Nurturing the bounty of customer loyalty requires more than proper cultivation and seeding.  It must be fertilized with attention and care.  

Courting the customer does not end with the sale or transaction.  Superior service providers never take a valued relationship for granted and remain ever vigil for ways to celebrate the joy of the partnership and express gratitude for the return it provides.    

Below are twenty-five ways to show your loyalty to your customers.  Use this list to jump start  your own list.  Amplify the items to suit your situation and customer.  Remember, what turns on one customer may be a turn off to another.  Recognition comes from the root  word "cognoscere" meaning "to know."  Tailor your affirmation.

• Invite a customer to an important staff meeting
• Arrange for a special learning experience for customers
• Hand write a thank you note to a key customer
• Send customers greeting cards on all key holidays
• Name a policy, building, or conference room for a key customer
• Provide a special parking space for a key customer
• Start a fund or scholarship in the name of a key customer
• Provide a donation in the name of your customer to his/her favorite charity
• Provide a special discount for loyal customers
• Create a forum that allows for public recognition of customers
• Remember a customer's birthday in a unique and personalized way
• Send customers a subscription to a magazine they value
• Buy helpful books for key customers (like this ours, just kidding.)
• Invite customers to you home for a cookout
• Provide tickets to an event valued by the customer
• Nominate your customer for a special award
• Find a way to compliment your customer to their customer
• Put up pictures of your customer in the cafeteria
• Invite customers to your facility to talk about their needs and goals to all    employees
• Feature key customers in your organization's newsletter
• Give your customer a gift that you won; like a weekend at __.
• Poll your customer for their input on important changes you plan to make
• Ask your customer for advice on how to better run your organization
• Purchase an ad in a key publication to thank your customers
• Have an executive write a thank you letter to a key customer