12TH AND BROAD

Thankfulness Challenge enters second year

Donna Brugger Drehmann

For 12th & Broad

Thankfulness, are you showing enough of it?

In July of this year, The Huffington Post named Nashville as the Friendliest City in America –how flattering!

But as I think about customer experience and our businesses, I wonder - are we the most Thankful City? I am not sure yet.

Many of you have heard me say that "Thank You" are the two most underused words in business. Honestly, I hope you are sick of hearing it because that means you are doing something about it. Whether you are sick of this, or hearing my mantra for the first time, no worries, because this week, I bring you The Thankfulness Challenge Year Two.

Last year, I wrote about four areas to show your thankfulness to customers:

Start small
Add another component
Measure it
Hire for it

This year, I want to bring fresh ideas to these areas.

Start small

A way to start small is to think about all of your digital assets – your website, Twitter, Instagram accounts etc. and how you currently use those assets to say "Thank You." Consider using each day or week this month to single out your customers and thank them for the business they brought to you this year. Be sure to include photos and your customers’ logos in these stories to encourage recognition and clicks/likes. If you choose this method, go ahead and let your customers’ know when you are going to highlight them so that they can use it to promote themselves.

Add another component

Another component when thinking about digital assets is to write an article or blog about your appreciation for your customers. You can cite particular stories about interactions, or select your most loyal customers to call out by name. Maybe this was a tough year for your company, but customers stood by you – if so, be transparent and share it! People react to stories, so consider telling a story about your thankfulness to customers.

Measure it

What if every town hall or team meeting started with accolades for those who assist your customers and give them the change to share customer success stories…how wonderful would that be? Each of your employees has a story about how they have cultivated the customer relationship. Thank the employees for their effort and thank the customer for being a part of the journey. Imagine if the CEO started a Town Hall or All Employee meeting with a Thankfulness Story about a customer – what a morale boost that would be! Or to be creative, have a contest to create the thank you plan at your organization – getting everyone involved and awarding the best idea.

Hire for it

Do you have a marketing department or someone who’s purpose it is to promote your business and cultivate new customers? If yes, then make expressing thankfulness a part of their job. This can be done throughout the year through the collateral pieces or sales talk tracks that they create. I have seen companies create customer testimonials that share good news stories. What if you flipped that concept and created thank you stories that you sent to customers that they could display?

I encourage you to get creative and find ways to appreciate and thank your customers throughout the year. We tend to think about it only in November, but now you are set up to do this all year round. I hope I notice a difference around Nashville, and hear ‘Thank You’ more often. But even if I do, I will continue to remind business owners that Thank You are the two most underused words in business, and I want to change that.