Is your sincere thank you the end of the sale? NO. How you treat your customer after the sale is crucial to the success of your business.People do business with people who they know and trust.Encouraging them to be repeat customers is much easier, and less expensive, than cultivating new customers.
Absolutely essential is a Thank You Note, within three days. This applies to both business and personal transactions. If you only do business on the internet you might get away with email; hopefully not an auto responder that is cold and generic. Someone in your Organization should be in charge of making sure this is done properly.
Smaller Organization s can easily add this activity to their work flow. They also have more of an opportunity for personalization. The people who actually interacted with the client should be sending out the thank you notes, or gifts where appropriate; that's all part of relationship building.
The really smart salesperson will take the time to hand write (horrors!) and personalize their ThankYou notes. Include a comment that indicates that you were really paying attention. Send it by snail mail; your message will stand out because hand written mail is so rare today in our electronic age.
Then, depending on the lifespan of your product, you should contact your customer again. I don't however recommend a Christmas/Holiday card; your message will get lost in the pile. Try any other holiday or regular event, like daylight savings time or the change of the seasons. And, of course, don't miss their birthday or any articles you see written about them. That gives you at least two contacts per year, three if you send holiday cards.
Seasoned, successful salesmen/women also pick up the phone occasionally. "Just thinking of you", "this reminded me of you", or congratulations on your new position/baby/whatever.
These professionals have worked with these same customers or clients for several years and sometimes even multiple generations.
Think of the security of knowing that half your income is already made for the year because of this business that you have cultivated, tended, and watched grow. You can now spend your time planting the seeds of new customers to grow your business.
