Catch your customer off guard in the right way and you can turn them into a lifelong client while adding huge value to your profits. Keeping an existing customer costs up to 25X less than finding a new one, and increasing customer retention by 5% can increase profits 25%. Bottom line is building client relationships is a worthy business goal for any company.
What’s the way to your current client’s heart? A surprise.
Why Surprises Work to Build Client Relationships
Surprises tap into a few key psychological ways of how people process information. First, the brain evaluates unexpected pleasures as more rewarding than expected pleasures. An expected gift on a client’s birthday is good. An out-of-the-blue gift in the middle of summer to show appreciation for loyalty is better. This higher valued pleasure translates into more positive feelings about your brand, and can lead to stronger loyalty.
Second, a surprise functions like a “pause button” to a person’s life, causing them to spend more time thinking about the unexpected pleasure than they would if it was expected. A surprise disrupts the daily predictable routine and shifts the brain into a specific sequence of “freeze, find, shift, and share.”
With a client, this process looks something like freeze (“wait I didn’t expect that”), find (“I need to find an explanation for why this surprise happened”), shift (“wow, this company is personable, cares about me, provides great customer service, etc”), and share (“I want to tell my friend/coworker/social media followers about this”). One study found that consumers are 20% more likely to talk about a product when they get it for free. A surprise positively influences how your client perceives your company, which can strengthen loyalty.
Third, a surprise invokes the reciprocity principle. People feel obligated to reciprocate a “favor” (like paying back a surprise gift) even if they didn’t request the favor. Do something nice for a client and they’ll subconsciously feel a desire to do something nice (like remain a customer) for you.
How to Give Great Surprises
A great surprise needs to be unexpected. A gift at Christmas time, Thanksgiving, a birthday, or a client anniversary will not be as impactful. Your customer may not expect you to give a surprise then, but those are traditional times of giving (and many other companies are giving a “surprise” then, too). Stand out with a uniquely and unpredictably timed gift.
Check out these ways to surprise your client:
- Give a self-care gift. Send your client a tea bag, a coffee gift card, a bar of chocolate, a little something to encourage them to relax and de-stress. It’s a simple gesture that shows you care about them beyond their ability to buy your products and services.
- Send a handwritten note. Writing to your client, rather than typing, adds that little personal touch that lets your clients know you care. Mail a postcard from a company retreat or vacation wishing them well. The little bit of personalization means a lot in a world full of emails with canned responses.
- Give a payment bonus. If a client pays an invoice within 7-10 days, reward them unexpectedly by covering the money transfer fee or offering a small discount in the next billing cycle.
- Throw in a free gift with their purchase. It’s more about the gesture than the item, but adding in something for free gives clients that extra reward benefit. You can even use it as a co-marketing tactic and see if there’s a somewhat related business who will give you small free samples in exchange for expanding their potential audience base. For example, a rental bookstore company for college students (called Chegg) includes small free samples of Tide laundry soap in their book orders. College students always need to do laundry, so they appreciate the free gift, Tide gets marketing benefits and is willing to pay the costs, and Chegg gets to give clients a gift without it costing a cent.
- Offer to contribute to their favorite charity in their honor.
- Give an influential, thought provoking book with a handwritten note on the inside cover.
- Refer them to another person. Maybe you could design a logo, but you know your graphic design skills are lacking. Instead of doing a mediocre job, refer your client to someone better. They’ll appreciate that you were looking out for their best interests, not your bottom line.
- Finish before a deadline. Of course, don’t sacrifice quality! But it’s a pleasant surprise when a job gets finished sooner or a product arrives earlier.
- Interact with their social media profiles. They’re trying to run a business too, and digital marketing is an important component of that. Spread the social media love by re-posting and commenting on their content.
Integrating client surprises into your business strategy is a great way to proactively build client relationships and turn more existing customers into loyal customers. If you don’t have time to coordinate client gifts, outsource the work to a virtual assistant like Quick Business Resolutions! Our staff can handle administrative tasks like this, freeing you up to focus on what really needs your attention. Check out our services or shoot us an email today!