Do you say "thank you" to your customers/clients?

You've probably looked at that title and thought "Of course we do", but do you go out of your way to send them a thank you letter and I don't mean enclosing one in with their order or (worse) with their invoice?

I am talking about taking time out of your day to write a personal thank you letter, put in an envelope, stamp it and send it completely independently of any work.

You will be amazed at the positive effect this can have on your business. Okay, you may not notice it at first, but it can be the deciding factor when a customer is choosing whether to use you again or to consider a competitor who might be cheaper.

For 11 years we have been providing transcription work to university researchers, and they have kept coming back, month after month and year after year. As soon as they need more transcripts they give us a call or send an email.

But why do they do that?

Are we the cheapest service? No, in fact we are probably the one of the most expensive.

Do we provide something no other service can provide? I don't think so. Typing is typing and at the end of the day many services provide an accurate, quickly completed transcript.

Do our clients know we appreciate them? Ah, there it is. I keep a record of the work we do for all our clients. Every couple of months I take time to send all our clients a thank you letter. I also make a special point of thanking those clients who have spent over a certain amount with us over time (so £1000, £2000, £3000, etc.).

I believe this one simple gesture has often made the difference.

But one further point. Never forget to personally thank those who have passed your details onto others.

Taking the university researcher example again, we often get an email from someone new with a line like "A colleague gave me your details..."

The first thing I do is to get from that person the name of who passed us as a referral. I then send them a letter or give them a quick phone call (never an email) to thank them. Result, almost on a monthly basis we get enquiries from unis all round Great Britain thanks to our clients.

So, when you have five minutes, why not take the time to actually thank your customers and show that you have appreciated their custom or when they have passed on your details.