Gift Basket Business Blog

Boost Gift Basket Sales With Charitable Acts

I recently read an article in Incentive Magazine about corporate holiday parties. “After a brutal year of highly public censure of meetings and events, corporate planners will devise their holiday parties very carefully….the current environment makes 2009’s year-end functions golden opportunities for corporate social responsibility”.

It occurred to me that 2009 could also be the perfect time to incorporate charitable giving into our daily business activities. How about promoting a particular gift basket design by donating a percentage of sales to popular charities in your community? Involve the charity that will benefit by having them announce your promotion in their newsletter.

Or, think about asking your customers to help out with your charitible giving program. When customers place their orders, they might also purchase one or two extra products ( eg: a box of cookies or chocolates; a package of popcorn or nuts) that you will include in basket to be taken to a local nursing home before the holiday. The more products purchased, the more baskets you’ll be able to create, the more nursing home patients and staff will benefit!

Think of ways that your business can provide opportunities to give to others. Your staff will be proud to participate in these giving programs and your customers will support you with their loyalty!

4 comments October 26th, 2009

Customer Complaints are a “Good Thing”

Have you ever had a customer who was unhappy with your products and/or services, yet didn’t let you know? Have you ever considered that this customer may have told all their friends and family about their dissatisfaction? Have you ever thought that customer complaints were really a good thing?

If customers let us know that they are dissatisfied, we have the opportunity to do something positive and hopefully, retain that customer’s business. But for many of us, it not easy to handle complaints. Let’s face it: no one likes to be yelled at!

In an article in The Gourmet Retailer, author Maggie Bayless describes five steps for handling customer complaints:

• Acknowledge the complaint.
• Sincerely apologize.
• Make it right.
• Say thanks.
• Write it up.

I suggest that you read the full article to get the full benefit. An important thing that I was reminded is that dealing to customer complaints is not a matter of finding out “who’s right and who’s wrong”. Rather, it’s a recognition that for some reason, our customer is dissatisfied and as business owners, it’s our job to turn this “dissatisfaction” into “satisfaction”. If we can focus on this “service” aspect of doing business, I believe that success will automatically follow!

2 comments October 12th, 2009