Get To Know Your Customers Day: 5 Ways to Celebrate

April 15 is typically known as the dreaded Tax Day, but it brings a more positive connotation this year: It's the second Get to Know Your Customers Day of 2021!

This quarterly holiday - which falls on the third Thursday of January, April, July, and October - gives small businesses a great opportunity to engage with customers, nurture loyalty, and uncover insightful feedback. 

While the origins of this holiday are unknown, the sentiment is clear: There's no better way to improve your services and build your brand than talking to customers.

Small businesses had to be agile with this effort over the past year, drumming up new ways to engage and retain customers during the pandemic. But as businesses begin to resume regular operations, don't put your customer engagement strategies on pause.

For this Get to Know Your Customers Day, and for the rest of the year, implement these tips to ensure your customer base is loyal and growing.

1. Say Thanks

It may seem simple, but it’s easy as a small business owner to focus on the “new” in your company—new leads, new customers, new outreach. And yet, one of the best ways to gain new customers is to engage your existing customers on a deeper level.

It’s the reason why word-of-mouth and referrals still drive the majority of new business, despite the prevalence of social media, review sites, and advertising. Expressing gratitude and finding innovative ways to thank existing customers is especially important after a year in the pandemic, where customers had to make thoughtful choices about the businesses they supported.

Showing appreciation doesn’t have to be an expensive endeavor for small businesses. Simple, handwritten thank you notes can turn one on-the-fence customer into a brand ambassador. Mailing loyal customers branded swag is another surefire way to surprise and delight (and earn a social media shoutout!). 

Pro tip: When it comes to thanking current, longtime clientele, your engagement outreach should not require a purchase. Leave special offers for new customers and give your loyal ambassadors a freebie.

2. Reward Loyalty

Hit loyal customers with a one-two punch; first thanking them for their support, and then offering them rewards, discounts, and other gifts for referrals. If your customer is a true brand devotee, they are likely already chatting about you with their friends and family. A formal reward program nurtures this behavior and helps you understand where your new customers are coming from. 

Reward programs can be tremendously beneficial for reasons unrelated to new customer recruitment. Want to spark more user-generated content? Need feedback on a new product or service? The customers in your reward program can become your go-to focus group, helping you develop new tactics within an already established customer base. 

Pro tip: When deciding the rewards or discounts for customer referrals, choose wisely. The reward should represent how much your business could potentially benefit from each new customer.

3. Gather Feedback

In a perfect world, business owners and customers could communicate telepathically so that each can understand what the other wants and expects. We may not have achieved this superpower yet, but small businesses have more tools than ever to gather feedback from customers. 

Depending on your industry, there are a few times in the customer lifecycle when deploying feedback requests can be helpful. But if you don’t already have regular check-ins with customers, try using Get to Know Your Customers Day as your quarterly reminder to send out surveys, follow up with customers, or request a Yelp review.

Gathering feedback is one of the biggest opportunities of Get to Know Your Customers Day, as you can't truly understand your customers without learning more about their direct, firsthand experiences. Creating regular feedback channels also helps you catch a negative experience and address the customer before it becomes a one-star review or social media roast. 

Pro tip: Sending a text to customers immediately following their service or interaction is one of the best ways to get immediate feedback without pestering them. Keep your prompts short and to-the-point. Example: “Give us a score! How would you rate your [blank] today, 1-5? ⭐”

4. Make It Something To Write Home About

Many small businesses thrive with a certain amount of special offers, discounts, initiatives, and giveaways. But one bad raffle could kick your company from fun to cheesy. So how do you roll out marketing deals without cheapening your brand?

If you’ve been gathering feedback from customers, use that information to drive decisions about the deals your customers desire the most. While choosing the product and service can seem fairly straightforward, the vehicle in which you promote and distribute them is a key distinguishing factor. 

From simple discount codes to Instagram challenges, small businesses have several options to roll out marketing tactics for promotional prices and services. The method you choose makes all the difference in determining how many customers will engage and take you up on your offer. The secret? Choose a delivery method that aligns with your brand. A BOGO coupon may not make sense for an upscale salon, but it might for a local cleaning service. On the other hand, a free product sample doesn’t make sense for a cleaning service, but would be perfect for customers of the salon.

With this approach for Get to Know Your Customers Day, you can create additional pathways to start meaningful conversations and solicit more feedback and insights from your customers. 

Pro tip: While marketing promotions can be done year round, up the ante for special occasions like company anniversaries with limited-time offers or events.

5. Do Some Light Stalking

We’ve all done it, and it’s no different in business. Using social media to identify your customers’ interests, preferences, and demographics can help you gain a more holistic image of your clientele, which supports better data-driven choices for your marketing outreach. Researching and understanding your audience is a key element of any good social media plan, but on Get to Know Your Customers Day, use it as an opportunity to take a deep dive and identify patterns that may help grow your business.

Picture this: You’re a landscaper, and you find that a considerable portion of your local clients also follow a social media account about the city’s parks. Next time you host an event, you already have the ideal spot to wow your customers—and maybe a future partner to run promotions with.

Pro tip: Researching like-minded local companies and engaging with their audience on social media is a great way siphon off some likely followers for free.

Get to Know Your Customers Day may come every quarter, but the tactics above can be utilized all year long. Here at GoSite, we're all about giving customers the easiest tools to find, book, and pay for your service.

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