Rewarding your best customers while boosting your sales

Nowadays sports fans have a multitude of options available to them for following their favourite team. Online game-trackers providing real time play-by-play, HD television and internet radio feeds. Sports franchises themselves are probably most worried about the emergence of HDTV because the product is so good that it is almost like being in reasonable seats at the game. That means they need to find a way to make the game experience that much better to encourage fans to continue to buy tickets for the real deal.

Like a franchise rewards their top players with long-term contracts, they also need to look at ways to reward their best customers, season ticket holders.

A football/soccer team in Italy has come up with a brilliant way to thank their best fans while at the same time probably create a large rush for merchandise. Recently Parma Football Club revealed their kits (or uniforms as us North Americans call them) for the upcoming 2012/13 season.




 

See those faint grey lines on the white part of the jersey? Those are the names of every single season ticket holder. Genius. What better way to thank your fans than having your players wear their name in games. I guarantee they will sell quite a few jerseys, especially to the season ticket holders. 

Your friendly neighbourhood internet store

The internet makes the whole world a marketplace for your customers if you so choose. But it also allows companies to automate and essentially become lazy on their customer service.

Someone buys something and gets an automated email response with the order summary, shipping info and receipt - it's pretty standard practice for e-commerce.

But what happens when you change things up.

I recently ordered my girlfriend a bouquet of flowers because i'm just such an awesome boyfriend and I was looking online at the various flower shops in Vancouver that delivered. I finally settled on a florist and ordered the bouquet and of course received an automated email confirming all the details.

Then, to my surprise, later that day I received an email from the florist letting me know that he "would be delivering a beautiful bouquet to ------ on March 16th for me. Thanks, Joel"

That simple email that took him 10 seconds to send just earned him a repeat customer. The next time I look to suck up to my girlfriend I will definitely be going to the same place.

It's that easy to turn your standard online store into one that makes your customers feel more important than a standard automated reply.

True Service

Kal-Tire has got it right.

And their brand/image is incredible for an industry that is typically seen as a bunch of grease pigs that rip off the consumers.

Kal-Tire's slogan,"True Service.", is a bold statement. But one they back up.. To be honest, I have never heard anyone say anything bad about them because they treat each customer great, and clearly have a strategy of building an ongoing relationship with every individual that walks through the door. Everyone needs tires, and they will need tires throughout their lives. Why not build a good relationship with every customer.

Now when someone walks through a tire store's door they are at the company's mercy, they are more than likely frustrated, and they are probably irritable.

Yesterday I had the good fortune of waking up to a flat tire and after figure out my jack and lugnut wrench I threw on the magnificent looking donut of a spare tire. With this in place I headed to Kal-Tire to see about repairing the flat or getting a new one. I dropped it off and heard from them after 2 hours. "Your front one is not repairable, but we were able to fix your right rear tire which also needed it." So they went above and beyond to make sure the rest of my tires were okay, fine i'll gladly pay the extra amount for that service. They didn't have the tire I needed to replace the damaged front tire but were quick to refer me to a place that would have them. Perfect.

So I went in after work to pick up my car and got to the counter, "Here is your total charge and that includes a discount too." Huh? What did I do to deserve a discount? Nothing, I chose Kal-Tire and they know the value in having a happy customer who will bring their car back to them for any future tire problems.

That my friends is True Service, and truly an impressively run company.

Something to think about the next time you are trying to figure out what image your brand should project in your customers minds. How can you build a better relationship with customers to extend your customer lifecycle?