What to buy your customer for Christmas
by Bruce Wade on 02/12/09 at 7:30 am
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Every year we are faced with some challenging prospects of what to buy our clients to boost their loyalty and show our appreciation for all their money throughout the year. The changing economy has clearly changed the type of gifts people are looking at this year. Here are some examples of what you can expect:
Donate to a charity of your choice and then let your customer know what you have done with the money you intended to spend on their gift. This is a great way to promote your CSI and will often prompt further donations from the client. Just make sure that you actually donate the money.
Team up with a health spa and purchase treatment certificates or vouchers to a fitness boot camp and give them away to your clients to use themselves or give away to their spouses or family. This is a double giving and will often score serious points for all the relationships.
With the World Cup on our doorstep some kind of memorabilia with either your or your customers logo on it. These can include the normal gifts from a business like EPG or go the extra mile and get a Kelp Vuvuzela or a Custom labeled wine bottle. Think creatively and do something differently.
My all time favorite is chocolate. It is very easy to customize, not too expensive and will always get a good response. Businesses such as Chocolate Time or Chocolate Graphics will help make your gift just that little extra special. Try to stay away from the normal supermarket stuff it smacks of a lack of imagination.
In these bad economic times you can also give the gift of reconciliation and write of all or some of the debt on your debtors books and then tell the person it is a part of their Christmas gift. Not too sure how the accountants or taxman will see this but it will sure bring shouts of joy from people who were previously hiding from your phone calls.
These are just a few, lets add to the list and see how creative we can become.
Bruce Wade is a survivor of the corporate and NGO world, author, speaker, business owner and entrepreneur, Bruce now runs the Entrepreneur Incubator; a member based organisation dedicated to serving those in the trenches of business through coaching, mentoring and leadership education. View more articles by Bruce Wade.
Tags: Christmas, customer service
