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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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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

Nothing in life is free. Or at least that’s what I tell my kids… I often use this phrase to teach them to look deeper into something versus taking it at face value (or based on what the T.V. commercial says).

Earlier this evening, I had the privilege of participating on an ad-hoc advisory board. I had this opportunity a while back and really enjoyed it, therefore I was looking forward to this one. The true value I saw in both was that they were both designed as a focus group. Both included a mix of trusted business associates, clients, staff and friends where the business owner respected and valued their opinions. While I, and everyone else that participated, would have probably done so for “free” -both host companies made sure we were compensated.

Now most people reading this will hear compensation and think money. However, compensation does not necessarily mean monetary value. And often compensation can mean so much more when it’s not cash. In both instances food was provided. They were both informal and gave the participants a chance to meet and network with each other. One provided gifts for each participant that attended and one utilized raffle tickets and awarded several prizes. Both made sure to acknowledge their appreciation for the help and input offered. I can only speak for myself, but I believe that all the participants felt honored to be included as a part of these elite groups.

Obviously, there were benefits to everyone involved. The business owners received invaluable input and advice for their business and the participants received food, prizes and/or gifts and the esteem compliment of being invited follow by a sincere expression of gratitude and appreciation. Truly a win-win situation for all.

Want more information, read “Creating an Advisory Board” by Susan Ward on About.com
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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

Consumer opinion is vital for any company. Whether you are launching a new service or product line, it’s important to know how your clients and prospective customers will react. However, it can be difficult to get people to spend time taking a survey. When you need the feedback and timing is of the essence, sometimes using an incentive is just the thing you need to add extra mileage to a survey campaign.

There are several way to put this type of program in place. The determining factor for which you choose should be determined by your business and how it operates. Obviously, the best would have an end result of the customer walking in to your location to claim their reward. This gives you an opportunity to “WoW” them and offer that personal interaction that is so important to have between the customer and your staff. Personal interaction plays a big part in helping to build a quality relationship. Another great way is to provide a ‘code’ that could be redeemed on your website once the survey information has been submitted. This is a great way to drive traffic and give your customer another chance to browse your offerings.

The number of ideas that could be outlined here are only limited by your creativity. Likewise, the types of rewards offered for completing the survey are unlimited. They need to be quality, yet should not be too expensive. Remember, a very successful survey with a lot of responses could get very costly very fast. However, the information you will gain is invaluable!
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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