The Art of Customer Appreciation: Strategies to Thank Your Buyers

Zuzanna Bocian

11 min read

May 7, 2024

Customers have plenty of choices in which to spend their money and time. They can choose between shopping online, going to the market, or just clicking on social media ads and buying products directly from Instagram.

Moreover, they like to feel appreciated for the hard-earned money they spend on your business. Customer appreciation drives customer satisfaction and business growth. You must value and acknowledge your customers to foster long-term relationships and increase loyalty.

Do you know that obtaining new customers is 5 to 25 times more costly than retaining existing ones? Additionally, a 5% increase in the customer retention rate increases profits by 25% to 95%. (source)

I’ll explain the importance of customer appreciation and its best practices and gifts.

The philosophy behind customer appreciation

Customer appreciation is a way to establish lasting relationships with customers. It shows that businesses recognize the value of their customers’ time and money and are committed to providing them with the best possible customer experience. The act of thanking loyal customers and expressing genuine gratitude to new customers helps to increase customer loyalty.

What is customer appreciation?

Customer appreciation is the act of expressing thankfulness or gratitude to customers. It shows that you value their purchases and loyalty to the business. It’s a simple yet powerful way to show your appreciation, make customers feel valued, and establish roots of deep loyalty for the long term.

Beyond showing gratitude to consumers, appreciation reflects the business’s dedication to improving customer satisfaction and developing strong customer relationships.

Importance of customer appreciation

Every market is competitive, requiring not only standing out from similar businesses but also providing unique value to customers to retain them for the long term.

Besides offering high-quality services, competitive pricing, and excellent customer service for complaint management, user appreciation is also significant.

When customers feel connected to brands, 54% will increase spending, while 76% will buy from that brand more than its competitors. (source)

Customer appreciation is the key to enforcing strong customer loyalty via a quick gesture of appreciation. However, it’s about being friendly to consumers and acknowledging their loyalty and feedback to the business’s success.

Impact of genuine appreciation on customer loyalty and brand advocacy

If you have a great dinner experience in a restaurant, won’t you recommend that restaurant to your friends and family and also visit it again? The same concept applies to genuine appreciation.

The first impact of genuine customer appreciation is customer loyalty. Loyal customers mean more purchases and a higher customer retention rate, which sustains the brand’s average sales.

The next phase is brand advocacy. Loyal and appreciated customers start promoting the brand through word of mouth, social media platforms, online reviews, and other means. The best thing is that 92% of people trust word of mouth over other forms of advertising. (source)

Understanding your audience

Now that you have a grasp of the fundamentals of customer appreciation, the next step is to figure out how to implement it. The first and most important step is to understand your audience. You must have a thorough understanding of your customer base to effectively customize your appreciation efforts.

Importance of understanding the customer base

Understanding your customer base is the key to building a solid relationship with your buyers and ensuring they feel valued.

Personalized appreciation

Not all customers can be convinced with the same appreciation strategy. Some can feel appreciated by sending a personalized “thank you” card with the order, while others feel appreciated with exclusive discounts, rewards, or gifts.

If you know your customer base, you can offer personalized appreciation. You have to understand your customers’ preferences, likes, and dislikes. Likewise, if you find varying patterns between them, you may also have to segment customers.

Tailored communication

You can develop highly personalized appreciation messages that resonate more profoundly by delving deeper into the understanding of your customer’s preferences, habits, and favored communication channels.

This approach demonstrates your attentiveness and commitment to their individual needs and significantly enhances their overall experience with your brand. In doing so, you foster deeper connections that transcend the typical customer-brand relationship and bolster substantially their sense of loyalty and attachment to your brand.

Increased loyalty

The above two points clearly show that understanding the customer base means providing a more personalized customer experience. This helps develop trust and loyalty between the buyer and the brand.

A loyal customer brings more sales and other customers, which helps drive business further.

Improved return on investment (ROI)

Understanding the customer base impacts ROI as you allocate your resources strategically. For example, if you find customer appreciation efforts have more positive outcomes with discount coupons than personalized thank you cards, you can allocate your resources accordingly. This way, you have strategic customer appreciation efforts that are less resource-hungry but ensure improved ROI.

Gather insights about changing needs

You can maintain customer satisfaction by anticipating and responding to their evolving needs. One way to achieve this is by proactively modifying products and services to align with changing customer preferences. By doing so, you can demonstrate your commitment to providing high customer service and foster long-term loyalty among your customers.

Tips to gather and use customer data to personalize appreciation

Considering the importance of customer data in personalized appreciation, below are a few useful tips for gathering and using customer data:

Conduct surveys

You can conduct surveys that ask different questions related to customer behaviors, preferences, and attitudes. You can administer the survey from other channels, such as social media, email, and in person. To encourage customers to give surveys, you can offer them rewards for providing feedback.

Use customer research methods

You can uncover valuable insights into customer behavior and preferences by employing various customer research methods like interviews, focus groups, and usability testing. It can help you create products and services that genuinely meet their needs.

Leverage customer feedback and reviews

Ask customers to provide feedback and reviews about their experience with the products. Customers can leave reviews on your website or other review sites. Furthermore, you can use HelpDesk to streamline feedback collection, as it provides a seamless way to collect and analyze feedback to extract useful insights.

Get insights from the customer support team

Customer support representatives frequently interact with customers. They’re well aware of customers’ common queries and frustrations. Moreover, they have ideas about different elements that trigger customer satisfaction.

Analyze website & social media behavior and engagement

Take a closer look at customer interaction, behavior, and engagement on your website and social media channels. Look at the elements that make them more engaged.

Social media interactions help to identify their concerns, new requests, favorite products, etc. Based on that, you can collect data about their interests, needs, and much more, which can later help in personalized appreciation.

Analyze customer data in four steps

Once you have gathered the raw customer data from different techniques, you should analyze it to get insights for personalized customer appreciation.

You can even use data visualization and other tools that can help extract valuable insights from the collected data.

Creative strategies for customer appreciation

You must go beyond the traditional “thank you” emails to show your customers’ appreciation. Consider offering discounts, loyalty programs, and other exclusive perks to reward customers. Your company needs to be strategic in displaying customer appreciation.

Personalized “thank you” notes

As we know, “thank you” notes are not enough. However, some customers still love receiving personalized handwritten “thank you” notes in the digital age. They feel more valued by them. But don’t make the “thank you” note another sales pitch. Consider adding it to another gift for the customer, like a discount or free samples.

Exclusive offers and discounts

An effective customer appreciation strategy involves giving customers rewards that acknowledge their specific interests or purchase history. You can send exclusive offers and discount coupons along with the order or through another communication channel.

Offering exclusive discounts makes customers feel valued and encourages them to purchase more. 68% of customers value shopping with a brand that sends personalized discounts according to their purchase history. (source)

Customer appreciation events

Host events that celebrate customers and provide them with unique experiences. For example, National Customer Appreciation Day is on April 18th. However, you can pick any day, declare it as customer appreciation day or customer service appreciation week, and offer a dedicated customer appreciation sale and support. Some brands even arrange customer appreciation days when they reach significant milestones.

Other than customer appreciation day, you can also host a special event. It can be a meetup with your most loyal customers, a one-day experience with your brand, or similar others.

Spotlighting customers

You can use social media platforms to feature and thank customers. You can appreciate them for their purchases and loyalty to the brand. Not only that, but you can share their success story. You can even announce gifts for those customers to encourage other customers to become loyal and earn the shoutout. Social media channels offer plenty of ways to say “thank you” to them.

After-sales follow-up

Post-purchase communication holds significant value in expressing customer appreciation and offering support. You can follow up with customers after sales to learn about their experience with the product and express gratitude for purchasing.

It would be best if you were responsive in addressing customer support requests. One of the best approaches is offering first contact resolution (FCR) with a well-established support system. For example, you can use HelpDesk to proactively reach out to customers and provide automated remote support with quick responses to queries.

Moreover, it offers centralized communication with customers through different channels, such as email, social media, contact forms, etc. To learn more, read the HelpDesk handbook.

Ideas for customer appreciation gifts

There are many gift ideas for customers to appreciate loyalty to the brand. However, the gift doesn’t need to be expensive, as thoughtfulness matters.

• Customized gifts with the customer’s name or a message that resonates with them make for some of the best customer appreciation gifts. Ensuring your chosen gift aligns with the customer’s interests is important.

• Gift cards can be a great way to add a personal touch to your customer’s experience. You can offer gift cards for different options, such as a coffee shop, bookstore, restaurant, or online retailer.

• Product samples or upgrades give customers a taste of premium services they have yet to purchase. It’s a gesture of customer appreciation and a teaser of what they could have with a premium plan, so it becomes an appreciation + sales tactic.

• Educational resources are also among the leading customer appreciation ideas. This could include giving access to ebooks, exclusive webinars, courses, and more.

• Charitable donations in customer names demonstrate shared values and community support, which will help foster strong relationships with customers.

Measuring the impact of customer appreciation

Once you have implemented customer appreciation strategies, the next step is to track their effectiveness.

Collect feedback

One of the best ways to measure the impact of customer appreciation is to collect user feedback. You can ask customers directly or use surveys, polls, social media platforms, etc. You can even encourage customers to give reviews on third-party review sites, like Trustpilot, Capterra, G2, etc. Based on the feedback you collect, you can measure the impact of customer service appreciation.

Monitor the changes in customer retention and sales

Monitoring changes in retention and sales is an effective way to measure the impact of customer appreciation. Your efforts will be beneficial if the user retention rate increases and sales figures improve.

Look at referral rates

One of the benefits of customer appreciation is increased referral rates. When existing customers feel valued, they encourage their friends and family to use your services. So, look at the stats of your referral rates. If they have increased, your customer appreciation efforts align with customers’ expectations and bring in new customers.

Analyze customer reviews

It would be best if you also analyzed customer testimonials. If customers feel appreciated, they’ll express their gratitude and satisfaction in reviews. So, look up the customers’ opinions and see what customers feel about your brand.

Summary

Customer appreciation plays a significant role as customers have many options. It makes the customers happy to feel valued and appreciated for investing their time and money in a business.

A well-planned customer appreciation strategy can boost customer loyalty, retention, and repeat orders, and attract new customers. However, developing creative strategies for customer appreciation that align with customers’ preferences is crucial.

It’s time to take action and make customer appreciation an integral part of your marketing strategy.