Christmas & Clients

We all have our favourite brands when it comes to purchases especially major ones. When it comes to our businesses, do we think of putting in the best to make our businesses, our clients favourite? We invest reasonably heavily in our websites, stationery, equipment and labour. All these show our clients we care about our image. However, how do we show our clients that they are important?Well, you may say, I've built an impressive website to attract my potential clients with a good search tool available as well. Great, but that's a marketing strategy. We know an easy to use website keeps clients coming back instead of heading to a competitor. Nevertheless, we've all used websites that were a mile short of a nightmare were it not for what we so desperately needed from the site and could not get! That means you had better be offering much more than just a well designed and 'tech-ified' website!

So my question is what are you doing to endear your client to your company? Yes, you provide great services and offer discounts all year round but the bottom line is that they are paying for these services or goods. Tosin Ogunkunle is a market researcher and DBA (PhD in business) student. Every Christmas, he receives a thank you bar of chocolate from his Car Insurance Company. Tosin is not a chocoholic but said it makes him feel that his custom is important and appreciated. "They are genuinely wishing me a happy holiday not looking for a way to drain me at Christmas with sales and discounts!" He said he doesn't gobble the chocolate immediately. "The wrapper is nice, 'Christmasy' and also has my name on it so I just put it on the cabinet with my Christmas cards then enjoy it on Christmas Day!"

How much could it cost to say thanks to your clients for supporting your business this year? From as little as 50p to £1.50 depending on how many customers you want to appreciate and the size of chocolate bar you choose. Are you going to build credit with your customers or crunch them with offers and discounts?