Today, it seems like everyone is preoccupied and socially isolated. Their noses are stuck in their smartphones. Most of the messages that they pay attention to are texts on their phones.
As we celebrate Thanksgiving and the start of the holiday shopping season, customers get impatient and often feel unappreciated.
One of the most powerful ways to overcome customer feelings of isolation and being unappreciated is to send handwritten thank you notes.
Imagine going to a restaurant, enjoying a great meal, and receiving a sincere, personal, handwritten thank you note in the mail from the server, the maitre d’, or the chef. Wouldn’t that make your day? Wouldn’t you feel important and appreciated? Would you tell your friends? Wouldn’t you want to return to that restaurant again and again?
Couldn’t you say the same thing about almost any customer service situation?
Imagine receiving a letter hand addressed to you with a “live” stamp. Would you throw it away without reading it, or would it be one of the first items you would open?
Nordstrom trains its sales associates to send handwritten thank you notes, and customers return again and again, raving about the outstanding service that they receive.
Make a personal resolution right now to send a personal, handwritten note to a customer, a center of influence, and/or a prospective customer with whom you’ve had some sort of personal contact every day. It’s hard to imagine many more effective things you can do to keep you in the front of that person’s mind.