Building Relationships, One Coffee Percolator at a Time

I just got a hand-written Thank You card in the mail from the Handy Group of Companies in Saskatoon. We had rented a 36-cup coffee percolator from their Special Events department for a family birthday party a few weekends ago.

This was a very nice gesture, and indicative of how they've built their business. Consider that our entire rental cost about ten bucks and the hand-written card probably cost about two, including time and postage. Now this company does rentals for large-scale parties and all sorts of tools and construction equipment and would routinely have rental contracts worth thousands of dollars. Yet for my ten dollar coffee pot, they still invested the time and energy to send a Thank You note. Hand-written no less.

This is a great example of how to value your customers. Rather than looking at the tiny size of my purchase, this company saw an opportunity to build a relationship. They looked beyond the value of the individual transaction to the lifetime value of a customer. That's what makes it worth sending a Thank You note for even a ten dollar purchase.