10 Ways Personal Gifting Strengthens Client Relationships

How do you let people know you appreciate them? Not even at work, but in everyday life, to family and friends?I think it's fair to say all of us have given our family and friends gifts at some point to let them know how much we care about them.

Whether it's for a birthday, a holiday, to celebrate an accomplishment, to say thank you, or just to surprise someone out of the blue- we've all sent thoughtful personal gifts to the people we care about to let them know how much we value them. And although it might sound strange at first, the way you show your prospects and customers know you appreciate them, shouldn't be all that different. Sending personal gifts has the power to create and strengthen client relationships.

For the prospects and customers that you're closest with, the people with who you know and have some sort of relationship already, a personal gift is a super-effective way of strengthening relationships and letting them know how much you value them.

At Alyce, most of our customers leverage personal gifting to make connections to start relationships with prospects. But once you've actually started developing that relationship, our most successful customers use personal gifting to turn their relationships from this:

To this:

The keyword here is "personal." By sending personal gifts that align with your prospect's and customer's interests at pivotal moments in the customer journey, you're demonstrating to them that you care about your relationship, because it comes off as thoughtful and that you're invested in the relationship.It's easy to take these potential personal gifting moments for granted.

But every pivotal moment in the buyer's journey that you aren't investing in the relationships you have with prospects and customers, are missed opportunities that could make the difference between a deal getting done, a contract getting renewed, or a deal being expanded.

💸 Related: 4 Simple B2B Customer Retention Strategies to Increase Renewals

Corporate Gifting Done Right

So you don't miss your next prime opportunity to start strengthening relationships with your closest prospects and customers, here are gifting best practices you can take advantage of by sending personal gifts:

1. Reengaged Leads or Opportunities: For leads that you talked to once or twice, but the timing wasn't right, or the opportunities that you lost to no-decision, sending a personal gift to reengage these folks is a really effective way of restarting a conversation on a warm note.
2. Champions at Stalled or Mid-cycle Opportunities: Especially in enterprise deals, you need to rely heavily on your champion to push deals across the line. Showing your champion you care about them by giving them a gift helps build that rapport and trust that you need.
3. Prospects Who Just Reached a Personal or Professional Milestone: Have a prospect that just got a promotion? Or spoke at a big event? Or won an award? Or ran a marathon? Whatever milestone or achievement they reached, sending a congratulations gift is something they'll remember you by.
4. New Customers Who Just Signed a Contract: You're happy you got a deal done, they're happy they got a solution that will help them out- what better way to celebrate together than to send a personal gift thanking them for their business to kick off the relationship the right way.
5. Customers Who Reached a Milestone Using Your Product: When your customer reaches a certain amount of usage, or has some sort of significant success using your product, show them you're invested in their success by congratulating them with a personal gift to let them know that you recognize how great they're doing.
6. Power Users of Your Product: Every company has those all-star users of their product who just get it. Send them something they'll love to make them feel seen and appreciated.
7. Customers Who Renew Their Contract: When a customer renews their contract with you, they're showing you that they're in it for the long-haul. That's commitment. Show them you have the same commitment to the relationship by investing in them.
8. Birthdays and Holidays: This one is a no-brainer. Have a customer or prospect who you're close with? Send them a gift to wish them a happy holiday or a happy birthday, and they'll appreciate the fact you thought of them, strengthening the relationship.
9. Customers who Gave You a Reference, Review, or Testimonial: When a customer does you a favor, like when they get on a reference call, leave you a review on G2, or provide a testimonial or case study- it's time to return the favor. Send them a gift to say thank you, and not only will they appreciate it, but they'll be more likely to help you out again!
10. Random Appreciation Gift: There's nothing that shows you care about someone more than a gift for no reason.

Want to learn more about how you can start treating your prospects in a more personal way? Request a Demo to learn more about Alyce.