Giving the gift of moldy brownies, how not to reward repeat customers

A few years ago I decided to do something nice for a customer after wrapping up a major project.

Instead of just sending them a thank you email, I decided to send them a small gift.

Brownies.

Gooey, chocolate brownies.

I had a recommendation for an ecommerce store to use, ordered a box, and shipped it to my clients address.

A few weeks later I followed up with that customer and asked if they got my brownies.

"Oh, that address. That's our mail drop address for our corporate mail. We check it like once a quarter when we're in the area."

So that idea was a bust.

But a few months later they emailed me again.

"Thanks for the brownies. We threw them away but the thought was nice."

Years later they are still a regular customer and have spent over six-figures with me.

The moral of this story is to send your customers old and stale food.

...right?

How about this instead:

Try a bit harder than usual to do something nice and unexpected for your customers now and then.

It doesn't have to be a large gift or anything.

If you normally send a thank you email, send them a postcard.

If you normally call them, send them a handwritten letter.

This can work really well with your repeat customers. There's less of them so it's easier on you and they'll appreciate the extra attention.

All you need is:

  1. Something to tell you when a repeat customer purchases.
  2. A process to create and send them the extra thanks.

Use cohorts to find out who the best customers are in your Shopify store

Repeat Customer Insights icon

Repeat Customer Insights will automatically group your customers into cohorts based on when they first purchased. This will let you see how the date customers bought would impact their behavior.

Install Repeat Customer Insights for Shopify

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