Flip the Funnel: How to Use Existing Customers to Gain New Ones

TYPES OF ACKNOWLEDGMENT

Acknowledgment can take a few different forms, and thanks to the explosion of contact points available to companies today, via a variety of ways.

Thank You

This is the simplest form of acknowledgment and the two most powerful words in any playbook. A company that recognizes a customer’s patronage conveys a sentiment that can touch even the coldest heart. The problem today is that people have become jaded. Trust in companies has declined, and customers’ default reaction is typically a guarded one; they are waiting for the catch, the trap, the fine print, or to be sold to.

Prove them wrong, already.

Additionally, thank-you gestures can often come up short by falling on deaf ears. So standardized and predictable, they risk becoming white noise, especially in the form of an automated, templatized e-mail with zero degrees of personalization. Don’t throw in the towel, though; this is a battle worth fighting, and typically a thank-you works best when it isn’t expected. A note on a customer’s birthday is a great way to take the opportunity to thank someone for their loyalty.

The band Coldplay expressed the ultimate thank you when it gave away an entire album to its customers without any strings attached (Figure 6.6). They weren’t asking their customers to use the honor system to ante up whatever they thought the album was worth into a tip jar (like Radiohead did). Instead, they just said thank you. Short. Sweet. Powerful.

Figure 6.6 Left, Right, Left, Right, ...