Everyone wants to feel important or special. Have you ever been excited and felt special because your name or picture was in a local newspaper or community newsletter? Did you save it and put it on your refrigerator? Maybe you even framed it to show it off to your friends and family. Remember how you felt?
The same can be said for your customers. They too like to be recognized and feel important. When a company can recognize or acknowledge a customer in public, it creates loyalty and faithfulness on the part of the customer to be your biggest fan and help spread positive feedback about the business. Let me share with you two examples.
The Town of Ajax in Ontario Canada creates customer loyalty in their community fitness centers by acknowledging their members for their accomplishments in their “100 Day Fitness Program”. Once the members complete the program, a picture is taken of the group, framed and placed on a wall of the fitness center in full view. This is a great way to recognize their accomplishments and it also leads to customer loyalty in number of ways.
For one thing, people appreciate the recognition and will continue their membership just to keep seeing themselves in the picture, especially after being congratulated by their friends and other members. It makes them feel important. Secondly, they appreciate the company recognizing them for their accomplishment and will keep their membership as a way of saying thank you for caring about them. Thirdly they will tell their friends to stop by just so they can see the picture, exposing new potential customers.
A second example comes from the Omega Sports Store in Wilmington, NC. They recognize customers by displaying their bib numbers from various running races they have completed on the walls of the store. Omega makes their customers feel special for their accomplishments. They also create loyalty from those customers who will continue to come back to the store and purchase new items. Think about it. Wouldn’t you continue to buy your running apparel from a store who makes you feel special? This strategy also helps attract new customers by word of mouth from those customers who tell others to come see their name and racing numbers on display in the store. It also adds to the credibility of the store and its employees for their expert advice and suggestions on shoes and apparel.
So how can you recognize and acknowledge your customers to show that you care and increase customer loyalty in your business? Here are a few ways you can try:
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Create a “Wall of Fame” in your business office or store of your customers happily using your product or service.
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Appreciate your customers by putting pictures of them on various social media sites.
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Ask customers to send you pictures of them using your product or service and display them in your customer newsletters, brochures or marketing pieces.
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Post testimonials from your customers in your business, social media or marketing materials
Famous people love to see their names and pictures up in lights and your customers are no different. Take time to recognize your customers in public to not only show them you appreciate their business but to be used as a marketing strategy to help create customer loyalty for life. It’s a win-win for everyone! Now that is Magical!