The first thing to consider when you start creating a client appreciation strategy is whether you have a full-scale list of your clients. A well maintained centralized client database is a foundation for all your further actions.

Using a CRM System

If you use a CRM system, you should register all your clients with their email and postal addresses as well as all your interactions with the client. This way, the database helps you track and moderate all the interactions you have with your clients and identifies their behavior. When you have a good tool to manage your client information you are ready to create winning client appreciation strategies to make them into long-term clients.

1. CONTACT YOUR CLIENTS REGULARLY – It’s common for businesses to forget their clients after a deal is made. Once the contract is signed, it’, you need to give them a good reason to do so.

   The secret lies in being not only a vendor, but a partner to your clients. And you become a partner by making your client feel important. Not only up until a deal is made, but also after the sale. By having some personal contact with your clients regularly, you will show that you really care about them and that you appreciate their choice to do business with you.

2. PROMOTE YOUR CLIENTS – Businesses spend a lot of time and effort in promoting themselves, but you can actually build loyalty and inspire positive behavior from your clients by promoting them or their business along with your own. If you have a website, include your customer profiles that show how your clients are using and benefiting from their relationship with you. If you have a newsletter, share some of your client’s success stories.

   By promoting your clients you will show that you are more than a vendor, you are also a pa noticed their efforts.

3. MAKE THEM FEEL LIKE A VIP – We don’t have to be selfish, but we are all self-interested, and so are your clients. Appealing to your client’s vanity and making them feel special can pay off with clients satisfaction and increased loyalty. Best of all, it makes them feel important. And who wouldn’t like to feel like they are VIP? This can be followed by some more VIP treatment, by including an invitation to a special event within an email. Or maybe go one step further and give your client access to an exclusive online sale or early VIP access to your service.

   By doing this, you bring in an element of personalization, which is one of the most effective tactics to improving client lifetime value. A VIP service is not so much about what you want to give, but more about what the other person wants to receive.

HERE ARE SOME THINGS YOU CAN DO TODAY TO SOME OF YOUR MOST IMPORTANT CLIENTS

• Send a hand-written thank you note to a client
• Order a box of cookies and/or cakes and send it to the company with the largest number of users of your service/product.
• Knowledge is power. Send your favorite book to a customer, you speak with the most.

Doing any (or all) of the above will show your clients how much you appreciate them. Figure out what will make your clients feel that they are important to you and then aim to create a proactive strategy to let clients know how much you care about them.

If you make client appreciation a consistent theme in your work clients will take notice, which means they are more likely to come back and even share their positive experience with others.