Are you one of the 3 percent?

Do you thank your customers? If you do how do you?

I once heard a stat… no idea from where… that only 3% of companies/sales people send some sort of of thank you to their clients.

Although I am not sure where this stat came from, I’ve believed it based on my own experience. And I’m a believer that it is even less if you factor in those who say thank you and then ask for something. Thank you, would you give me a referral? Thank you, could you leave a review? Thank you, insert up-sell here. Personally, I do not want to be thanked and then asked to reciprocate in the same breath. Wasn’t my purchase enough?

I believe it is important to remember that our customers are people, and people never forget how you make them feel. And like most people, a simple thank you can go a long way in creating positive feelings and building strong relationship with your customers.

A recent study by TD bank confirmed that gratitude is appreciated by consumers. 84% actually indicated that they still prefer an in-person thank you, especially if it is accompanied by a gift. But let’s be honest, this is often not practical. 60% of respondents agreed that appreciation should be conveyed directly to the individual and 44% thought it should be personalized. So direct, personalized appreciation is the way to go.

We will talk about different ways to appreciate and say thank you in a future blog article. We will also talk about who and why you can appreciate in a future article. For now, we will focus on the handwritten card and focus on your customers.

Thank you cards do more than just say thank you. They show your customer that you value them and the relationship they have with your organization. We need to ensure that our exchanges with our customers give them value. We create value when we give them something they need or make them feel good. Letting a customer know that you appreciate and value them… makes them feel good. Thus provides value.

Personalized. In today’s world, this is actually easy to do. If you are handwriting your cards, make sure you include their name and if you can include personal details even better.

To give you and example…. Jennifer, thank you for your recent purchase of the 2017 Rubicon Jeep. We hope it takes you on many cross country adventures! This was personalized as it included my name, and what I bought.

But in a world of digital applications to generate tangible cards, you can easily personalize by simply adding in a person’s name.

Tangible. We think the best thank you’s are tangible. In this article we are talking about cards so we will refer to tangible cards. This is instead of an e-card or an email. There are other ways to do tangible thank you’s but the key is leave them something that they can touch. You trigger more of their senses creating an overall experience.

Don’t be promotional. A thank you should just be that. A thank you. When you include brochures, have too much branding, include business cards, or a coupon, you are no longer genuine in your thank you. With tangible thank you cards, I think the branding should stay on the back of the card and only the back. The front and inside should be all about the person you are thanking. I once did a presentation on my system of sending thank you cards but it was very clear in the presentation that we would likely never work together because in the cards they were sending at the time, they made sure their logo was on the return label and on the front of the card, they sealed the envelop with a branded sticker and they included business cards in the thank you card. Every part of the thank experience was about them and their brand. At least that is my opinion. Because our beliefs were so different, our system was not the right fit. We believe in saying thank you. Period.

It takes time. Handwriting a card takes time, using an app to send an electronic card takes time. This is why we believe that your thank you must be a part of a process. You must then schedule your activities to ensure they get done. Like most things in business, it’s all about consistency. Consistency comes from processes.

We look forward to sharing more about ways to say thank you in future blogs. For now, we would love to hear a inspiring story about the power of sending (or receiving) a thank you.

“Showing gratitude is one of the simplest yet most powerful things humans can do for each other”

Randy Pausch