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Almost every business owner or manager will tell you that having loyal customers is the key to a successful business.  If that’s true then what are they doing to keep those customers coming back?

Most will tell you that they send emails or newsletters on a regular basis to keep in touch.  Others will say that they use a discount program to show their appreciation.

It’s not to say that these are bad things but they are not enough.  To create loyalty and get your customer engaged with you takes effort and planning.  Creating strong relationships is one of the most critical ways to retain more of your customers and grow your business faster because happy customers` will use you more and refer friends which will give you a tremendous competitive edge over your competitions.

Here are some statistics showing that challenges that businesses face today:

• Each year the average company loses 10-15% of its customer base
– Bain & Company
• “84% of customers who leave, do so because of poor service”
– Forum Corp
• “A typical business only hears from 4% of its dissatisfied customers—the other 96% leave, 91% for good”
– Jim Barnes, “Secrets of CRM”

By understanding why your customers are leaving you and how you can retain them is priceless information.  The best way to find out what they want is to ask them, read the article ” You Just Need To Ask ” 11/19/2010

The sooner you know what makes your customers tick, the sooner you can begin to cultivate a strong and long lasting relationship to keep your business alive in any economy.

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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

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.

Contact Sally

Reward and recognition are the best ways to reinforce the importance of providing excellent customer service and a great way to get your employees attention. If you are wanting them to work towards the standards that you have set, set the goals and put an incentive program in place now. Don’t wait for the annual employee review to either recognize or reprimand employees how your employees serve your customers -generally that may be too late.

Delivering little rewards more often is a far better method and works very well for reinforcing desired behavior. Provide verbal recognition frequently. Tell your employees what they are doing the right when you see them providing good service. It’s much more motivational. And do it in front of the other employees so they get the idea too.

Pass out little rewards on the spot for small efforts and bigger rewards for efforts that are above and beyond your expectations. Your customers like to feel appreciated, and so do employees. You must reinforce the importance of good customer service by acknowledging and rewarding your employees effort to meet your standards. When your employees understand and offer the level of customer service that both you and your customers expect, and then are rewarded for it, everyone wins. Your employees get in the habit of and strive to offer great customer service. Your customers are happier because they are treated well. And both benefit you and your company.
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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

Most people enjoy getting extra spending money -especially around the holidays. Surveys of American workers have concluded that 95% considered a cash bonus a positive and meaningful incentive. The only problem with giving cash is that often employees simply use the money to pay bills and quickly forget the reward.

Cash or cash substitutes (such as coupons or points that can be traded for products) do, however, give the employee flexibility in deciding how to use the reward. Since it’s their choice, the likelihood of satisfaction increases tremendously. Gift certificates and gift collections have the advantage of quick fulfillment and flexible dollar amounts. They also may or may not have expiration dates and it’s very likely that they don’t have shipping costs associated with them. They can be redeemed in a wide variety of places (including the internet) for a broad range of merchandise, from gourmet food to lawn mowers.

After numerous years consulting with clients about incentive programs I have heard stories time and time again about the reward they chose themselves while working for a previous company. One story was about a step ladder they had received close to 12 years prior. All the details were easily recalled and shared -they still have the step ladder in their pantry to this day. Even today I got to hear the story of someone receiving star awards and after receiving a certain number, redeeming them for a flash light. This was after six years… Now that is an incentive that works.

Again – give cash, and although it’s appreciated it is also quickly forgotten. Give a tangible gift, especially one where the recipient gets to choose their own reward, and it’s remembered indefinitely. The choice is yours.
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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

Most companies have one or more formal reward programs in place for recognizing employee performance. Although most programs typically recognize only a small number of employees, for those employees the experience is significant and motivating… and the public acknowledgment can help to shape the future aspirations of other employees as well.

One way to build anticipation and momentum in obtaining certain desired behaviors is to create an employee reward program through a contest of some sort. The desired behavior is typically described along with other requirements, and the rewards are made explicit. Keys to a successful employee contest include:

• Promoting the program and its purpose.
• Setting realistic, achievable and measurable goals.
• Limiting the contest to a short period.
• Keeping contest rules uncomplicated.
• Ensuring that prizes are desirable to employees.
• Linking rewards directly to performance.
• Giving rewards and recognition promptly.

Prizes to crown an employee reward program should meet most of the following criteria:

• Have lasting value.
• Reflect the effort and quality of the recipient’s performance.
• Inspire pride of ownership.
• Be useful.
• Suit the personal taste of the recipient.
• Reflect the best image of the company.

While the details referenced here are primarily focused on employee reward programs, variations can also work well with independent contractor, vendors, and even customers and clients.  Motivation is a powerful tool and when used properly can help you get the results you desire.

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

As your appreciation grows for those you do business with, you are probably thinking, “I do a lot of business with whom ever. “What should I get them to show my appreciation?”

Your first thought is probably to get him or her something expensive and flamboyant, to make sure they know how much you appreciate them. Get that thought out of your head.  You should never give an expensive gift just to try to win points.  If you had a sale or wrote a contract for several  thousand or millions of dollars, sure an expensive gift would be great but that’s the only time.

Here are a couple great rules you can gift by:

• Check the policy of the company. For some companies it is totally a no-no to give their employees gifts. If that’s the case, respect their company’s rules. Send them a card or hand written thank you, it will mean a lot to them.

• Even if the company allows gifts, don’t go crazy. Expensive gifts make company representatives nervous. Many think that accepting a high-priced gift obligates them to continue doing business with you. There are many inexpensive yet very nice gifts that say “Thank You” without making them nervous.
• DO NOT send gifts with corporate logos (pens, coffee mugs, Post-It notes). They will remember who the gift is from without your company name screaming at them.

The best thing you can do is put some thought behind what you give. Give something you wouldn’t mind getting your self.  Don’t just grab any old thing and though you don’t want to spend a fortune, don’t be cheap either.  The quality of the gift you give says a lot about you and your company.  A good quality gift that you put thought into will say “We appreciate your business”.  Also, be sure you attach a nice card with it.
Following some simple, common sense guidelines for gift giving will take you a long way in both business and personal situations that call for gifts.
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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