One of the best ways to start a great customer relationship is to follow up immediately after a sale with a personal handwritten thank you note. Retailers who do this (and require their employees to do it) report amazing customer feedback. Customers often call or come back into the store to say thank you for this!
Although handwritten cards or notes have the advantage of being very personal and professional, they take more time making them more likely to get put off or not get done at all.
So: Use the hottest technologies of the 21st century.
Send a thank you email as soon as the customer leaves your store. You did ask for their email address, right? How impressed will your customer be to find a personal thank you email waiting for them in their inbox. This is so much better than a bulk newsletter or flyer. (Although they also have their place).
What if you’re mainly a "cash and carry" store and thank you notes won’t work for you? A great solution is to give your customers a "loyalty card". Again – get their email address and use it as the "identifier". Then you can say thank you for their purchases.
Every year, one pizza restaurant in my neighborhood emails their "loyalty card" customers during the holiday season. They offer substantial discounts or "freebies" based on what’s been spent during the year as their way of saying thank you.
In the end, it doesn’t really matter what method you use. All that matters is that you said Thank you!
Note: Our CounterPoint Point of Sale has customer loyalty tracking built right into the package. How easy is that? Contact us to get help setting this up.