Tag: thanking clients

When Should We Say Thanks?

                                       Do you have an attitude of gratitude?   Our robust cheque debate got me thinking. When, if ever, should we thank our clients? I’ll tell you what I do, so we can compare notes.   Giving Thanks An associate once advised me to thank clients whenever they paid my invoices on time. I liked this idea because it was: Polite. A way to reinforce positive behaviour. (Maybe.) A differentiator. (How many suppliers thank you for paying them?) So I started giving thanks.   Thanks a Million But I didn’t just thank clients for paying on time. I thanked them for paying whenever the money came through. I also thanked them for each new job, their continued custom, their referrals and even their newsletters. This wasn’t a chore, as I genuinely like and respect my clients. But after years of extreme gratitude, I began to wonder if I was overdoing it.   Thanks for Nothing In applying my ‘shotgun’ approach, I was thanking some clients for paying me months later than my invoices stipulated. Though happy for the cash (when it finally came) I was reinforcing tardy behaviour.   Thanks for Everything At the other end of the spectrum, I was regularly thankful to switched-on clients who always paid on time. But after several dozen sequential thank-yous, I was running out of ways to say it. Were these clients getting sick of my sycophancy?   Thankless Task I could always ask them, of course. Yet I fear that doing so might call my sincerity into question. And so I’m asking you: When do you thank clients? Under what conditions? Do you do it before, during, after ... or all three? Do your customers like it? How do you know you’re not laying it on too thick? What, if anything, does giving thanks do for you? Finally ... who, if anyone, thanks you? Please give us your thoughts. I’ll be forever grateful. :)   Paul Hassing, Founder & Senior Writer, The Feisty Empire