Customer and Client Appreciation

There will be no more missed opportunities with a client appreciation calendar. With a little bit of prep, you can have a month’s worth of ideas to keep your clients or employees engaged.

Engaging your clients keeps you in front of them creating more opportunities for sales. Engaging your employees creates more satisfied people that will work their tails off for your business and love doing it. Either way, you are creating raving fans for your brand!

How to use a client appreciation calendar:

1. Think through who you want to keep engaged and who you should be appreciating.

   1. Do you have employees?

   2. Do you use vendors to make your workload easier? Printers, designers, etc.

   3. If not employees, who are your clients and customers?

2. What are the core values for your business or wins that should be celebrated?

3. Put everyone’s birthdays and work anniversaries on a calendar. This is an easy way to make others feel known.

   1. Get 12 large zip loc bags, write one month on each bag, and place birthday/anniversary cards for each month in the bag, sticky noted with specific names and dates so you don’t have to think about it! At the beginning of every month sit down and write all cards for birthdays and anniversaries that month.

   2. Decide how you want to celebrate birthdays and work anniversaries. If your team is small, everyone could go out to lunch, or if your team is larger try celebrating all the birthdays for that month at once.

4. Decide your yearly budget and then how much you want to spend every month. There are plenty of things you can do that cost a small amount.

5. We are going to leverage holidays and “national ____ days” as starting points for fun appreciation. These are days like national taco day, national nap day, and national chocolate ice cream day. Click here to see national holidays.

6. Whenever you on-board a new employee or client, create a form for them to fill out where you get a list of their favorites - dessert, breakfast treat, coffee order, magazine, sports team, splurge, candy, etc. If you want to take things a step further, have people take the love languages quiz to find out how they best receive affirmation- gifts, time, acts of service, words, physical touch (an appropriate pat on the back, hug, or high-five- maybe just ask for their second language? HAHA)

7. You will need stationery for handwritten notes. Baudville.com is a great place for fun notes that are on theme with business appreciation. At the end of every month, I like to write handwritten notes to people that engaged with my mission, helped me reach a goal, or did something nice for my family or someone else. (WORDS OF AFFIRMATION)

8. Make a list of all of your favorite delivery options. Here are mine. (GIFTS)

   1. Milk and Cookie delivery- Tiffs Treats and Crumbl Cookies

   2. Floral Delivery - The Bouqs

   3. Uber Eats - They will deliver ice cream from Jeni’s Ice Creams and pretzels from Auntie Anne’s in my town.

9. Get out of the office! Make a list of team-building spots (think bigger than trust falls or high-ropes courses) or ways to spend time out of the walls of your office. (TIME)

   1. Discounted or free dinner for clients at a local restaurant

   2. Movie Night with your team

   3. Food Truck park- give out tickets & have an area set up to hang out with teammates or your clients

   4. Take employees to an experience - An Escape Room, Theater performance- picking things in your area of business also helps your team learn together.

   5. Take a workout class together.

   6. Partner with other local businesses to offer freebies or discounts.

   7. Your local CVB is a wealth of knowledge and can actually help connect you with fun places or events in your town. They’re a great free resource!

10. Bring someone into the office (ACTS OF SERVICE)

    1. On-Site Car Wash

    2. Barista - make afternoon coffees for everyone

    3. Massage Therapist

    4. Yoga/ Self-Defense Instructor - for a relaxing or fun break from work

Now that you have all of your ideas grab a calendar and start plugging things in. I have mentioned a national _____ day or holiday each month to celebrate, a date to write your handwritten notes, and a day to celebrate your core values. It’s up to you to pick another date to include acts of service, gifts, or time investment.

Pro Tip- Keep a close read on the ‘temperature’ of the office or with your clients/vendors. Has everyone been working hard and long hours lately? It’s time to make a deposit to them. Most of the time teams are happy with a day off. Did you make a lot of revisions with a designer and you feel like she might be getting overwhelmed? It might be time to send her a gift card to her favorite dinner spot along with a handwritten note of your gratitude for her flexibility.

As entrepreneurs, we are moving fast and just trying to get things done. With that, we can sometimes forget to pay attention to how everyone else is doing. Enlist someone else to gauge this for you. It is imperative for you and your brand’s reputation.