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Can you believe it’s been a year?

Anniversaries are very important milestones. Whether it’s a wedding anniversary or a business anniversary, neither should be overlooked. Both are meant to be celebrated!

Recognizing a wedding anniversary can be tricky business. In the personal realm, generally you are in fairly good contact with friends and/or family and know what’s happening in their personal life. This makes it much easier when sending a card or gift. However, since business may be a little more removed, you should be much more cautious if you plan to acknowledge wedding anniversaries. It wouldn’t look too good to send an anniversary card only to discover later that the marriage had ended.

For businesses, it is much safer to celebrate anniversaries related to the customer or employee relationships. Recognize customers for one or more years of doing business with your company. Or acknowledge the number of years an employee has been with you.

When choosing a gift to send, it’s okay to give something a little more personal for a wedding anniversary. Just be sure to give something that both the husband and wife would appreciate. For a business anniversary, you are better off to have a planned out award program based on years of service -especially for your employees. This will avoid any problems of one employee receiving something the perceive as less than what someone else received in the past. On the other hand, you have more flexibility with your customers. Gifts can be based on the volume of business a customer does with your company or any number of other factors.

Taking the time to take notice and make a big deal of both personal and business anniversaries will mean alot to both your customers and your employees… and will go a long way towards earning their appreciation and continued loyalty.
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About The Author:

Sally Liddicoat is a Wife, Mother, Speaker and the Founder & CEO of AttaBoy! Solutions. Her goal is to help businesses increase sales, generate ongoing referrals, strengthen relationships and create loyal customers and employees through appreciation marketing. Throughout this blog you can sign up for updates, news, special offers, discounts and more. So take a look around, leave a comment or two and enjoy.

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It doesn’t have to be a special occasion to show appreciation for your loyal customers.  Loyalty programs can be used year round for clients and business partners as well.  A properly implemented customer loyalty program can work well for all kinds of businesses, from retail stores to personal trainers.

There are several reasons you want to implement a loyalty program in your business:

• To thank existing customers
• To reward for referrals
• To acknowledge a large or significant purchase

The list could go on.  The most effective programs offer graduated rewards – the more a customer spends, the more they earn.  This rewards your best, most profitable clients or customers for their continued patronage.

Receiving a gift makes your customer feel good about your company, especially if they see the gift as something of value or something that is useful to them.  Thanking people with a gift for being your customer gives them a sense of loyalty to you and every time they use that gift it will help to solidify that relationship.
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About The Author:

Sally Liddicoat is a Wife, Mother, Speaker and the Founder & CEO of AttaBoy! Solutions. Her goal is to help businesses increase sales, generate ongoing referrals, strengthen relationships and create loyal customers and employees through appreciation marketing. Throughout this blog you can sign up for updates, news, special offers, discounts and more. So take a look around, leave a comment or two and enjoy.

Contact Sally

…that is the question.  Or is it?

Incentives have been used by businesses for years to motivate their employees to produce more – more products, more sales, or even to offer better customer service. They are also used to build business relationships, honor and encourage loyalty, thank buyers for large and/or frequent purchases, and to welcome new prospects. By implementing programs that focus on motivation by reward on both sides of the coin, the benefits are real:

• Productive, engaged employees who work harder, produce more, and stay with the company.

• Satisfied, loyal customers who buy more and tell others about the company.

Motivated employees are productive. Sales programs and internal competition for a prize considered to be highly valuable are very effective. Salespeople especially have clearly defined goals with measurable results, making incentives a major strategy. When an employee is singled out for doing a good job, they feel good about it. When they receive a gift to mark their achievement, they feel even better. As a result, they will display more loyalty and be more conscientious on the job.

Appreciated clients are loyal. When a new customer gets a smile and a handshake, it builds their relationship with the individual and the company. When they receive a welcome or thank-you gift to mark the occasion, they feel even better about it. Once again, human nature takes it back to basics: People like to feel valuable, important, and appreciated. When a company not only delivers their products and/or services to a client, but goes beyond to give them a tangible sign of how much their business means to the company, good things happen for everyone. New accounts are open, customers become loyal and stay, customers buy more, and the company sets itself apart from the competition.

Incentives are the classic dangling “carrot”. It’s human nature – we’ll work harder if there’s a reward that we find worthwhile at the end of our efforts. As the old saying goes, you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink… however, if you salt the hay he will be thirsty when he gets there. Salt that hay, dangle that carrot – incent and get results!
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About The Author:

Sally Liddicoat is a Wife, Mother, Speaker and the Founder & CEO of AttaBoy! Solutions. Her goal is to help businesses increase sales, generate ongoing referrals, strengthen relationships and create loyal customers and employees through appreciation marketing. Throughout this blog you can sign up for updates, news, special offers, discounts and more. So take a look around, leave a comment or two and enjoy.

Contact Sally

Surely you have received the same lesson that everyone is taught early in life. Mom is close by. Somebody gives you a treat or does something nice and you hear the ever familiar words, “What do we say?”. Although mom’s voice and tone most likely changed a bit as you grew from two to twelve and beyond, the message is still the same “Don’t forget to say thank you”.

Appreciation. It’s a fairly simple word, yet so many forget all about it. They neglect to express or show it as often as they probably should to the people that impact their life in a positive way. Keep in mind, no occasion is necessary. In fact, small surprises and tokens of your appreciation spread throughout the year help the people in your life feel valued all year long.

Gestures of appreciation can be big and extravagant or they can be very small and subtle. Either way, or somewhere in between, they have a huge impact. Here are some really simple ways to show your appreciation:

1. Send a heart felt thank-you note or card
2. Give a gift certificate or gift card to their favorite coffee shop
3. Have fresh cut flowers delivered
4. Extend an invitation for a cup of coffee or lunch
5. Present a small gift – the gift, and the gesture of providing it, will light up their day
6. Pick up the phone and give them a call – yes, it can be that simple
7. Tell them what you think they are particularly great at and why

The relationships with the people in your life are as important as the people themselves.  Take time to show them how much you appreciate them and how much they matter.
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About The Author:

Sally Liddicoat is a Wife, Mother, Speaker and the Founder & CEO of AttaBoy! Solutions. Her goal is to help businesses increase sales, generate ongoing referrals, strengthen relationships and create loyal customers and employees through appreciation marketing. Throughout this blog you can sign up for updates, news, special offers, discounts and more. So take a look around, leave a comment or two and enjoy.

Contact Sally

People are creatures of habit -they really do like to go back to the same place whenever possible. There is a certain comfort in the familiar. So why would your customer want to leave you and buy from someone else?

Here are 4 possible reasons:

• They are unhappy with the way that they are treated
• They are unhappy with the price
• They are unhappy with the product/service or
• They die, and are no longer buying anywhere

A poor manager or small thinking owner focuses on the second reason and believes that if we just cut our price below our competitor our customers will never leave. However, the main reason for most businesses is that the customers are unhappy with the way they are treated.  How can that be you say? Think about your own buying experience. You don’t shop at the cheapest place. You don’t just look for bargains. You look for a company that treats you fairly, appreciates you, offers great customer service, has helpful and friendly employees and lets you know that you are important to them, even if you spend more than at the store across the street.

So what can you do to create a relationship with your customers so that they want to come back to you?

First, communicate with them. Find out who they are, what they expect from your business. Keep a database of information and gather as much information as possible. Email is one of the best ways to not only stay in touch but to gather other valuable information.

Next, don’t be worried about price. Earn their respect. Treat them as if your business depends on them (which it does). Keep your prices fair and your customers will stay even if you aren’t the cheapest guy in town. Be sure all your customer service people are trained on how to PROPERLY deal with customers and that they have the authority to make decisions pertaining to customer issues.

Build equity in your customer service and don’t stress price. If your friend helps you carry heavy furniture upstairs in your house, you would never think of offering him money. You will offer him a beer, a soda or some other food or drink and have a friendly conversation. This is what your customers want too. They want to be treated like a good neighbor – a good friend. Provide rewards for large purchases and for being a loyal customer. Send thank you notes, give business gifts, offer special discount to them. In short, make it expensive for them to leave you.

Just like you, your customers want to feel like they are important.  Be sure that your staff always makes them feel good about their visit, either in person or on-line.  If you take your customers for granted you will soon see them buying from your competitor because he has learned to treat them like friends and he shows them that he values their business. Your customers stop buying from you when you stop showing them you care and stop treating them like they want and expect to be treated. Make your customers feel good about doing business with you and they will always come back.

About The Author:

	Mike Liddicoat is a Husband, Father, Speaker and the Sales & Marketing Director of AttaBoy! Solutions. His goal is to help businesses maintain relationships, ensure future business and acquire new referrals through appreciation marketing. Throughout this blog you can sign up for updates, news, special offers, discounts and more. So take a look around, leave a comment or two and enjoy.
Contact Mike

The biggest and best asset your company can have is it’s customers. We all know that the cost to bring in new customers is much higher than to keep a current one happy and coming back. So why is it that most business owners and managers put so much attention and expense into getting new customers instead of focusing on their existing customer base?  If you treat your current customers like they are important to you they will be your best source of advertising to bring new customers in, new customers that already have a good opinion of you from their friends.

Here is a fact – You can’t avoid losing some customers! But, you can cut down your losses. According to studies here are the reasons why your customers leave you:

1% die. If you can find a way of stopping this, please let the rest of us know -otherwise there is nothing you can do to stop these customers from leaving.

3% move.  If your store is on-line it’s because they have found a company that they are happier with, if you have a brick and mortar location they just left the neighborhood. However, if you treat your customers correctly and show them that they are appreciated they will go out of their way to shop your business. Treat them right and you will minimize your losses.

5% will go someplace else on the recommendation of family or friends. We all know word-of-mouth is powerful, however, I’ll say it again, if you treat your customers properly and make them happy with your products and services, the chances of them leaving you lessen, and as we said at the start of this, they will bring their friends to you.

9% will switch to a better product or service. How do you compete with this one? You had better make sure that what you offer in products and services is the best that can be found. Don’t be cheap or skimp when it comes to product quality or the level of customer service that you provide.

14% will leave due to being dissatisfied with your company, product or service or all three. Again, you can’t stop everyone from leaving but you want to be sure that when they do leave, you did all you could have to keep them.

Okay, so if your good at math you see that this is only 32% of your customers, what about the rest? A whopping 68% of your customers will be lost due to indifference. There was just nothing special about your companies products, services or staff that made them stay with you.  In short, you didn’t WOW them.

So what do you do?

You need to show appreciation, sincere appreciation for your customers. You must give them value at every turn. One thing you can do is be sure that your customers are greeted at the door.  Go into a QT convenience store (if you have them) and the clerks will always greet you as you come in.  Thank your customers for doing business with you, a simple word of thanks, a card, a gift or a special something that lets them know that you know they have choices and you appreciate them choosing you.

Doing these things, over time, will nurture and grow a relationship that will stand the test of time.
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About The Author:

	Mike Liddicoat is a Husband, Father, Speaker and the Sales & Marketing Director of AttaBoy! Solutions. His goal is to help businesses maintain relationships, ensure future business and acquire new referrals through appreciation marketing. Throughout this blog you can sign up for updates, news, special offers, discounts and more. So take a look around, leave a comment or two and enjoy.
Contact Mike