Just closed a major deal with a customer and want to show your appreciation? Want to thank a client for years of business? Send ‘em something!

It doesn’t have to be a flock of flamingos (by the way, the correct collective term is a “flamboyance” of flamingos). You could send that customer or client…

• flowers
• pizza
• a gift basket
• cupcakes
• a bottle of wine or champagne
• branded company merch—such as a hat, t-shirt, or mug

The list goes on. Whatever you send, be sure to keep it tasteful, and try not to overthink it or overspend. The goal is to delight your customer or client with something small they’ll actually use or consume.

“Would you like more information about our health and safety procedures?”

Keep in mind that many customers aren’t aware of the ins and outs of public health guidance, or the precautions various businesses are taking. They may not care—and that’s fine—but it’s important that you offer the information to those who do want to know.

Looking to win back former customers?

Do it with some zest and some zeal like Bonobos and other companies.

What Bonobos did: Sent a short email to disengaged newsletter subscribers asking if they wanted to remain on the mailing list.

Why it works: This is a perfect example of how to write a winback email. It’s brief and upbeat, with a clear call to action. If people don’t click the button, they’re automatically removed from the list. Receptive customers have an easy way to re-engage, the rest stop receiving emails that aren’t relevant to them, and Bonobos keeps the list clean—all with minimal effort.

Don’t think you need to offer chat on your website? Consider the facts: 

• 42% of all customers prefer chat over other communication channels.
• 73% of consumers are satisfied with their experiences on live chat—the highest level of all customer service channels.
• Chat prospects are 4.6 times more likely than other prospects to convert into customers.

Read more about how live chat can benefit your business—and how to do it right.

There are right ways and wrong ways to greet customers. Here’s how we do it at Ruby:

Everyone has an opinion. But relatively few people share their opinions with the world. Why? It’s not just due to shyness or modesty. It’s because, in many cases, leaving a review is hard work. 

I mean, you have to have coherent thoughts, write things down, put words together, make coherent arguments. It isn’t easy. (Trust me—you don’t want to know how long this blog post took to write.)

Businesses bridge the gap between having an opinion and the effort of voicing that opinion by making it dead simple for customers to leave reviews. They use templates and buttons that allow people to provide feedback in seconds. They ask for and collect reviews in the channels in which customers are most active and receptive.

Small tweaks can have massive results. Home Depot, for instance, increased reviews by 55% after removing a single step in the customer review process. Rather than asking customers to click on a link within an email message and go to a separate landing page, the company lets people provide feedback by responding directly to the email.

Here at Ruby, we’ve used Hively, which generates a nifty little footer in email signatures with three buttons: a happy face, a “meh” face, and a sad face. People can simply click the icon that represents how they feel and send immediate feedback to us about how we’re doing.

The survey is an obvious go-to strategy for measuring customer service success–and with good reason. There are many tried-and-true methodologies you can leverage to test your customer touch points.

You may think “big money” when you consider doing a survey, but it’s easier than ever for a small business to develop a do-it-yourself poll. Write up a small handful of key questions, then use a free or low-cost resource such as Survey Monkey to send it out to your email list. The set-up is a breeze, and dynamite analytics are built right into the software.

You don’t need a huge customer list for your survey project to be a home run. Qualitative surveys can flood you with useful insight about your customers’ experience and attitudes.