10 Thoughtful Ways to Thank Your Customers

2024 is almost at a close as few days left only, we’ll be ushering in New Year. The lead up to the new year is a time for appreciating those who made your year better with Business Thanksgiving.

For a business, those are its happy customers.

So, this December, take some time to thank your customers for all that they have done for your business. A business thanksgiving gesture goes a long way in fostering a strong relationship with your customers.

How to thank your customers without sounding fake? Well, here’s 10 thoughtful ways you can let your customers know how much they mean to you.

10 Ways to Thanks your Customers

• Write Handwritten Notes
• Send a Personalized Gift
• Give Back to Society Through Charity
• Reward the Social Savvy
• Remember your Long-Distance Relationships
• Send a Desk Calendar
• Help your Customers to Learn Something New
• Make your Customers Feel Special
• Start a Loyalty Program
• Throw a Party

1. Write Handwritten Notes

Even though we live in a world where conversation mostly take place over emails, text messages and calls, there’s something inherently poetic about the written word. Writing someone a note is a level of personalised communication that nothing can replace.

Writing a thank you note for your customer, shows that you not only do you care about them, but you’re willing to put in the work to show them that.

This Diwali for instance, the team at Techjockey.com curated handwritten notes thanking its customers for giving the chance to serve them. A small effort like this on a company’s part always strengthens your CRM efforts and pays off in the long run.

There is a logistical challenge to this, as it might not be feasible for you to hand-out or send a note to every customer. This is applicable to businesses who operate locally like retail stores, who’s consumers are usually local people.

2. Send a Personalized Gift

Everyone loves getting gifts, so capitalise on that.

You can either send them a gift or give them one, if they visit your store. Don’t give a generic gift, think beyond the ordinary and give them a personalised gift. Your business thanksgiving gift should be something that expresses both an emotional and personal touch, and not just a professional courtesy.

You can use a CRM software to analyse their purchase history and predict what products they are likely to buy in the future. You can use this information to gift them a product from your business, that they are likely to use and appreciate. Gifting them something from your inventory but personalised to their needs, shows both concern for the customer and is a branding opportunity for you. Hurry up there are few days left in New Year!

Here are a few things that you can use for inspiration:

• If you have a book store, gift a book they’re likely to read considering their favourite genre.
• Child care & maternity stores can gift a baby care hamper, which is a great gift for new parents.
• Coffee stores & cafes can gift coffee mugs and espresso shot glasses to their loyal patrons.

3. Give Back to Society Through Charity

It’s our responsibility as a population, to ensure that we give back and help our fellow man, animals and nature, prosper. You can take this to the next level by donating on a customer’s behalf to a social service or non-profit. For example, if one of your customers love animals or has pets, you can donate to local shelters on behalf of the customer. Business thanksgiving like this will be much appreciated by your customers.

4. Reward the Socially Savvy

Social media is an integral form of communication and people rely on it a lot to know more about a business. Think about all the business recommendations you’ve seen on social media from your friends, which have educated you on good places to go to or use their services.

Your loyal social-savvy customers deserve to be recognised and thanks for all of their contributions. So, consider rewarding these customers with special announcements, shout outs, exclusive promotions or unique freebies.

5. Remember Your Long-Distance Relationships

A lot of businesses these days aren’t hyper-localised anymore, and have customers spread all across the state, country & even the world. It’s important for you to recognise customers far away and to cultivate such relationships, by sending them a gift card for their favourite coffee or lunch places in their city with a personal note.

6. Send a Desk Calendar

If you’re planning to gift them before the end of this year, you can always send them a calendar of the new year. Send calendars with beautiful images on them or send a custom calendar using your business’s photographs highlighting your team, awards you’ve won, key moments & some happy customers.

7. Help Your Customers Learn Something New

Let’s say you run a brunch place. Organise a professional wine tasting session and have an expert tell your customers the etiquettes of wine tasting and the do’s and don’ts of wine consumption.

If you run a clothing store, invite a stylist to help your customers dress up and be more fashionable.

Business thanksgiving through value added services like these not only build gratitude, but also help in nurturing existing relationships and open the door for cultivating new relationships.

8. Make Your Customers Feel Special

Instead of pleasing every customer, pick one and make his/her day count. You can pick someone who’s fiercely loyal to your brand, as they are the most likely to respond positively to your proposed activities. Go overboard and absolutely nuts on what you can do for the customer. Stories of incredible customer experiences are great for promotions and it also gives one lucky customer a great story to tell. If you play your cards right and are creative enough, said customer’s family, friends and social media acquaintances will be recounting the story for days and weeks to come.

9. Start a Loyalty Program

Loyalty programs are great for customer appreciation & retention. Take Amazon Prime for example, who are rewarding their members by screening popular movies like Aquaman early. You don’t even have to keep something that complex; a simple program that offers customers discounts on their anniversary would also work.

If you want to start a loyalty program, here’s some top loyalty management solutions you can look into.

10. Throw a Party

Invite your customers to a fun-filled party, organised by you. You can make it a fun affair by adding photo booths, games, karaoke, etc. If you want to keep it classy, alternatives to a party are picnics, barbeques & brunches.

Did we miss a good way for business thanksgiving? Hearing from our readers make us very happy so share your comments and thoughts below! Only few days left for New Year!!