How Smart Businesses Show Their Clients They Care

How Smart Businesses Show Their Clients They Care

Kenny Chapman
Contributing Writer
The Blue Collar Success Group

We all know the importance of showing our clients that we care about them and appreciate them for doing business with us when they have so many companies to choose from. We attempt to do this in a variety of ways throughout the year and while many companies do a pretty good job, some others fall short every day.

If you’re going to build a fence around your clients, stay in front of them, and have them continue choosing you, it’s good to do a few things above and beyond at certain times of the year.

In speaking to some of our clients here at The Blue Collar Success Group this season, we were given some thoughts and ideas I thought I’d pass along to you this month. Although the focus here is the holiday season, these same ideas can and should be initiated throughout the year. Hey, how about a valentine for your best customers! What better way to let them know you really care?

During the holiday season a lot of people focus more on what they are grateful for than other times of the year. One of the best marketing things you can ever do is to “join the conversation your client or prospect is already having in their head”. In our sales and service training we focus a lot on how technicians can do a better job demonstrating gratitude to our clients before they even sign off to have any work done. You’d be amazed to see how much simple gratitude means to your client base.

This season, here are a few things that have been brought to our attention by some of our contractor clients just like you.

1. Treat them right. Like you would care for your own grandmother 

This may seem too simple and you might find yourself quick to dismiss this because treating your clients in this manner is what you strive for on a daily basis, right? Be careful to make sure you remind your team of the importance of the “golden rule” and realizing that us being in a client’s home is a big distraction, schedule interruption, and simple inconvenience for them. Let’s make sure we treat them like gold each and every time regardless of situation.

2. Give to a local food bank or run a food/clothing drive in the name of your customers

Many companies we coach do a good job with donating to food banks, or even making their service trucks rolling collection points for food banks. The last two companies I did onsite training with were both collecting canned goods on service calls and giving the client a discount or matching the client donation. These are great things to do and to kick it up a notch, donate in the name of your customers, not just your company name.

3. Thank you cards

Again, this may sound really simple, but execution can go a long way. When is the last time you got a thank you card in the mail? When was the last time you got a thank you card in the mail from someone you had recently done business with? History says it’s probably been awhile since you received this type of mail or attention from a business. You might have a thank you card system in place for all services over a certain dollar amount or something similar, but what about your Service Agreement clients, or the average client that you’ll see in the next month? Get buy-in from your team and this can be really fun.

4. Free disposal check to make sure you’re ready for cooking season – or a free air filter to all service calls – or a free USB outlet

This obviously needs to be thought about, discussed, and executed by the trade or trades you perform, but think about something just a little extra that you can do to show additional appreciation during this time. What are inexpensive items/services that demonstrate additional value from your team to your client base? These need to be done in a 100{938cd9e8dae860e800efc538277d4f7684e6f6981618ba70d1c34357a53c2e1f} “our gift to you” type way, not because you’re looking to find something more to offer your client for purchase. Get creative, brainstorm with your team and see what you can come up with.

5. Home safety tips to keep the family safe this season

These tips can be delivered in a variety of ways. You can use your electronic newsletter, simple emails, you can print postcards for a leave behind, post tips spread out over a few days on your Facebook page, and many more. Again this needs to be trade specific as you being the expert, but I bet you can come up with several points of value to share with your clients as just one more way of saying Thank You for doing business with us.

Get your team involved, have a meeting to brainstorm, and simply by you focusing on these topics you will remind your technicians and front line team how critically important your clients are to each and every person in your company.