Recognising and Rewarding Clients With Gifts

Recognising and rewarding your clients at key moments in your relationship is a no-brainer.

Whether you are marking a birthday or celebrating a referral, investment or house-move. These can be really personal moments for your client where your thoughtfulness will really stand out and be appreciated. The end result? A strengthened relationship and great client engagement with the ultimate aim of increased advocacy.

We really believe that something physical, particularly when your relationship is often quite virtual can be very powerful. Something that will make your client take a moment to pause and enjoy the moment.

Considering referrals specifically, that ‘closing the loop’ communication can be as important as sending the gift itself. When a client makes a referral they are trusting you with their reputation. They are making a recommendation, the outcome of which will reflect upon them personally. Communicating the success of the referral and even subsequent updates will help to validate that initial decision and make future referrals more likely. (always being sure to respect the new client’s privacy of course!)

An example of a referral gift which went wrong? Recently Emily received £50 Amazon gift voucher with a ‘thank you for your referral’ note, her immediate thought was, ‘which referral? I’ve made lots over the years (but none recently) because I think your service is great’. This may all sound ungrateful -who wouldn’t be happy to receive a voucher to treat themselves? But without more context around the communication ‘thank for the referral to xxx’, or ‘thank you for all your many referrals over the years it really means a lot’. The gesture felt a little empty - a bit of a tick box exercise. And to make matters worse, she’s now only gone and lost the gift voucher!

So how can you get it right? How does it work in reality?

Sending regular gifts to lots of clients and people who recommend your service can be an operational challenge. If done correctly it can be a core strategic activity to build engagement and grow your business, but done badly it can potential do harm to your relationships. We believe there are a few core questions you need to answer:

Who is going to receive gifts?
Why are you sending them a gift?
What do you want to achieve by sending a gift, how do you want them to feel?
How are you going to communicate and close the communication loop?
What are you going to send them?
How are you going to present the gift?
How and when are you going to give to them?
How do you track it?
What do you send them next time?

There is a lot more to it than you may have first thought. Once you start considering all of the above it starts to become quite a big task. The good news is, we make this easy, taking care of all of this for you. We can even segment your customers to match the most appropriate and thoughtful gifts to them.

How do we create a reward program for your clients?

We want to create a gift that could’ve only come from you. We take time to understand you and your business. If appropriate, we can take a holistic view of your customer engagement strategy. Let us plan all your gift-giving. We will ensure consistency and that a story is told. We know that it can be difficult to find a gift that you think will suit all recipients, so during the consultation process we will seek to understand common themes that define your relationship.

We will use our in-house capabilities and wide network of largely UK based suppliers to create a gift that will incorporate personal touches. Whether it’s discrete corporate branding or using your brand colours in the gift wrap and a personal message in the giftcard. We believe that these small details are what makes the gift.

Finally, but not to be underestimated, we consider the logistics, and practicalities of ordering a volume of gifts (shelf life, storage space). Do you want to hold the gifts yourself to distribute as and when, or we can handle that for you.

Here are a few gift ideas that are always appreciated. Items included have lots of personalisation options. Please get in touch to start recognising your clients in a way that is really memorable.

Image below of Wills & Trust bespoke client gift with branding and key messaging inside recipe book.