How do You Appreciate Your Customers?

Want your customers to feel the love for your company? We’re here to help. Lori Vest and I are making some changes in the way we blog so that you can use our entries as a training tool with your staff. We will be posting a blog entry every Monday morning. Feel free to use each blog entry as an icebreaker activity at your weekly meetings. With predictable postings, you’ll be able to generate lively discussions that will raise your staff’s awareness, while encouraging them to practice empowering skills on a regular basis. We welcome your comments and ideas as we strive to support our Love Them Up community.

How do You Appreciate Your Customers?

How do your customers know that you appreciate them? How do you express your appreciation in face to face contact? On the phone? In emails? When you answer the phone, do you sound happy to hear from them? Do you end your emails with words of appreciation for their continued business? Most people don’t receive nearly enough appreciation. What can you do to make sure your customers are feeling the love? Research has proven that it is much more costly to recruit new customers than it is to keep the ones you have, so it’s actually financially reckless to give up any opportunity to show appreciation. Unfortunately, the typical way most people give appreciation may appear insincere.

It’s good to say, “We appreciate you,” but it’s not quite enough. Take it one step further and tell them WHY you appreciate them. Describe what you are appreciating in detail. What is it that makes them enjoyable to work with? I was a guest speaker last week on the Association Playground webinar, a membership-based on-line community for association leaders. I spoke in detail about how to give effective appreciation to attract and retain customers. One woman on the call said, “At my last job, my boss stopped by my desk and said, “Do you know how much I appreciate you?” Happy to hear this, she asked, “What is it that you appreciate?” Her boss got flustered and couldn’t come up with anything. Talk about de-motivating! Even when the appreciation is sincere, it can come across as lip service. The way to make your appreciation effective is to describe specifically what you notice or how you feel. When you give specifics, your appreciation rings true to your customers’ ears, and in their hearts.

Instead of just saying, “You’re great!” – Tell them WHY they are great with specifics like “I appreciate how quickly you signed off on the updates. That made it so easy for me to get your work into production right away. ”

Question:

If you were to put 5% more effort into offering effective appreciation to your customers this week, what would you be doing?

Posting by Marilyn Suttle at www.LoveThemUp.com