Don't let them leave empty handed

Recently I was in the wedding party for a friends wedding. We had arranged to get suits using a new company named Indochino that has you size yourself, enter the numbers on their website and three weeks later you get a custom suit delivered to your door. Now there were some problems with the initial suits as one could have predicted but the company has addressed this by offering a free remake if a tailor you take it to recommends they remake it. They also offer and alteration credit if only minor tweaks are required. So after getting sized up properly and receiving my new suit I needed to return the original suit to the company.

Indochino happens to have their head office in Vancouver so I decided to just walk down and drop it off. I was greeted at the door by one of their employees who then decided he could not let me leave the office empty handed. He proceeded to give me one of their newly designed "Suit Utility Kits" which included a black tie, cuff links, tie clip, and handkerchief.

I was a little frustrated with the suit process initially but when they gave me this small gift I turned into an advocate. I am now happy with a great looking suit and perfect accessories to go with it. It can be pretty easy to diffuse a customers anger with something this small. Isn't it better to invest the small amount of money instead of losing a potential repeat customer? Well done Indochino.

Keep your customers in a vault

Banks spend an impressive amount of money on television advertising in an attempt to lure people away from their competitors. But is that the best way for them to spend it? Shouldn't they spend more money on holding onto their current customers. The majority of my bank accounts and various investments accounts are with a specific bank, why aren't they working harder to maintain my relationship with them? Instead I see other banks offering me pretty good incentives to move to them. All I receive from my bank are statements and untargetted offers to use their rewards shop.

The other banks are offering me the simplest things to win me over, such as no fees for pulling cash out of ATMs that aren't theirs. I do that a couple of times a month probably amounting to costs of $3-5. My bank could offer me the same thing and keep a heavily invested client happy.

For a cost of $3-5 a month, that sounds like a no-brainer. How can a business full of financial minds say no to retaining a client for $60 a year? They will easily make that back off fees within the first month.

For an industry that is entrusted with peoples life savings you'd think they would have a higher emphasis on client retention, but they seem to be more interested in client acquisition. Its the standard marketing rule - generating a new customer is "x" times more expensive that retaining one you've already sold.

What are your competitors offering your clients that you could easily offer them yourselves to ensure they stay with you? That's what you should be asking yourself.