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  • Add You - Small Business Marketing Solution - Surprise Upgrades and Customer Respites

    Becoming The Sales Super Hero
    "May I ask who does your window cleaning?” Jimmy mutters to the "gatekeeper". Her look and answer almost knocks him down – as if a dragon just opened its mouth and spewed fire at him. Helga Gatekeeper responds, "WHO WANTS TO KNOW!?"Has this never happened to you? If it hasn’t, then you haven’t prospected before. It's happened to all of us who sell services business-to-business. Unfortunately, oftentimes the answer to Helga kills the deal
    u>: Serve a cup of hot chocolate in a to-go cup once a week during the winter when parents pick up their kids. Inexpensive, plus it’s a very much welcome treat on a cold day.

    Type of Business: Retail Maternity Store in a mall.
    Customer Respite Idea: Once a week order cookies in the afternoon and hand ou

    Computer Consulting Business: Find the Right Clients
    If you really want to make a decent living and want to have a good, successful, viable computer consulting business, sooner or later you have to narrow down your focus and develop a keen intuition. Additionally, you have to become good at spotting the best small businesses accounts.The Small Business MyriadThere are millions of small businesses in the U.S. and there are millions of small businesses abroad. There’s a pretty good c
    OK, your small business wants to outshine the competition. Start by surprising your customers with some inexpensive but delightful surprises.

    Customer Respite means creating either a physical space for the customer to relax, or at a minimum making the environment inside your store less rushed so they can mentally relax.

    Surprise Upgrade is creating a pleasant and unexpected reward for your customer. Classic rewards-driven marketing tells us that the primary way to upgrade or reward customers is to tie the upgrade to a purchase. The simple but effective punch-card at the corner donut shop or coffee house is the most common means for small business to achieve this. This is an effective and cheap way to build some customer loyalty.

    But you can also upgrade customers randomly. If done consistently, a high percentage of your good customers will experience these upgrades. The overall impression of your business as a company that cares will increase both among the current customer base and the new customers who visit your shop.

    The first thing to do is brainstorm a mix of both Customer Respite Areas and Surprise Upgrades. Here are five examples from various businesses:

    Type of Business: Home-based Daycare.
    Customer Respite Idea: Serve a cup of hot chocolate in a to-go cup once a week during the winter when parents pick up their kids. Inexpensive, plus it’s a very much welcome treat on a cold day.

    Type of Business: Retail Maternity Store in a mall.
    Customer Respite Idea: Once a week order cookies in the afternoon and hand out

    Performance Appraisal - Should I Go To HR If I Disagree With My Review?
    Question: Should I Go To Human Resources To Protest An Evaluation I Believe Is Unfair?It's difficult to answer the question without knowing how human resources works in your company, your relationship with the manager, and the nature and use of the appraisals. But here are a few things to consider.It is probably within your rights to approach human resources with your concerns about a performance evaluation you feel is unfair. How
    relax.

    Surprise Upgrade is creating a pleasant and unexpected reward for your customer. Classic rewards-driven marketing tells us that the primary way to upgrade or reward customers is to tie the upgrade to a purchase. The simple but effective punch-card at the corner donut shop or coffee house is the most common means for small business to achieve this. This is an effective and cheap way to build some customer loyalty.

    But you can also upgrade customers randomly. If done consistently, a high percentage of your good customers will experience these upgrades. The overall impression of your business as a company that cares will increase both among the current customer base and the new customers who visit your shop.

    The first thing to do is brainstorm a mix of both Customer Respite Areas and Surprise Upgrades. Here are five examples from various businesses:

    Type of Business: Home-based Daycare.
    Customer Respite Idea: Serve a cup of hot chocolate in a to-go cup once a week during the winter when parents pick up their kids. Inexpensive, plus it’s a very much welcome treat on a cold day.

    Type of Business: Retail Maternity Store in a mall.
    Customer Respite Idea: Once a week order cookies in the afternoon and hand ou

    Malcolm Baldrige Values and Concepts Part 11 – Systems Perspective
    In this issue, I will share my experience acquired from the conglomerate and its operating companies. For the purpose of this article, I will articulate the Systems Perspective which is the last Values and Concepts in Malcolm Baldrige Criteria. As before, I will use case studies to show how some of the companies implement them.To recap, below are the Eleven Core Values and Concepts of Baldrige Criteria:Visio
    ans for small business to achieve this. This is an effective and cheap way to build some customer loyalty.

    But you can also upgrade customers randomly. If done consistently, a high percentage of your good customers will experience these upgrades. The overall impression of your business as a company that cares will increase both among the current customer base and the new customers who visit your shop.

    The first thing to do is brainstorm a mix of both Customer Respite Areas and Surprise Upgrades. Here are five examples from various businesses:

    Type of Business: Home-based Daycare.
    Customer Respite Idea: Serve a cup of hot chocolate in a to-go cup once a week during the winter when parents pick up their kids. Inexpensive, plus it’s a very much welcome treat on a cold day.

    Type of Business: Retail Maternity Store in a mall.
    Customer Respite Idea: Once a week order cookies in the afternoon and hand ou

    Improving Your Resume Through Volunteer Work
    Many people have trouble finding ways to improve their resume. Once you’re in a job, it’s often hard to get the exact tasks that you want assigned to. You may be very good at what you do – which makes it even more difficult to branch out and advance, because they won’t be able to afford to lose you.One of the best ways around this is to volunteer in your spare time. Your resume needs to be constantly improving – don’t sit around doing th
    increase both among the current customer base and the new customers who visit your shop.

    The first thing to do is brainstorm a mix of both Customer Respite Areas and Surprise Upgrades. Here are five examples from various businesses:

    Type of Business: Home-based Daycare.
    Customer Respite Idea: Serve a cup of hot chocolate in a to-go cup once a week during the winter when parents pick up their kids. Inexpensive, plus it’s a very much welcome treat on a cold day.

    Type of Business: Retail Maternity Store in a mall.
    Customer Respite Idea: Once a week order cookies in the afternoon and hand ou

    Marketing Teams; Do Not Just Participate Dominate
    So many marketing teams claim to be the life blood of a business and sometimes they are and yet so many times I see that marketing teams fail companies miserably. But why you ask? Well too many know-it-alls trying to do the same old thing and running redline against the competition, which is also doing the same old thing and you have to wonder why? Well, because this is the way we always do it and this way works? Does it now? Indeed and I suppo
    u>: Serve a cup of hot chocolate in a to-go cup once a week during the winter when parents pick up their kids. Inexpensive, plus it’s a very much welcome treat on a cold day.

    Type of Business: Retail Maternity Store in a mall.
    Customer Respite Idea: Once a week order cookies in the afternoon and hand out a couple to all moms-to-be that browse the store.

    Type of Business: Convenience Store.
    Surprise Upgrade Idea: Once a year, in the middle of winter, throw a “spring breeze” day where all gas purchases (not just the fill-ups, but all purchases) receive a free hanging car deodorizer.

    Type of Business: Shoe Repair Store with sidewalk frontage.
    Customer Respite Idea: Place one small wooden bench in front of store, close by the door--in the most shaded spot, if possible.

    Type of Business: Dry Cleaners.
    Surprise Upgrade Idea: Once a month just as a surprise pass out a coupon for one free dry-cleaning of a blouse or shirt. Nothing fancy--and the customers don’t have to do anything to “earn” the coupon.

    Another idea for any business is to add some easy listening music playing in the background so that your customers relax while waiting in line.

    OK, we came up with five ideas in about than twenty minutes. Obviously, you know your business better than we ever will. You should easily be able to come up with a half-dozen ideas of your own that will surprise and delight your customers.

    Here’s a great exercise:

    Create a Surprise Upgrade and Customer Respite “Idea Matrix”.
    Goal: Take 30 minutes and think up 7

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