Saying thank you, gracias, merci, danke… It doesn’t cost a penny but the effect of true gratitude can be remarkable. Sometimes it pays to be a bit old-school in how you run your voice over business. A bit of old fashioned business etiquette can go a long way to help keep your customers happy and wanting to do business with you. What am I talking about? I’m talking about thank you notes and even thank you presents if the occasion calls for it.
With the growth of the internet and the ability to do so many VO jobs remotely in the comfort of your own booth, it can be easy to lose that personal touch when you are dealing with clients. This is where a thank you note can make a profound impression on a client that you may have just worked with.
Thank you emails are good but they don’t carry the same power as a thank you note received in the post. Let’s face it; we hardly ever get personal post any more. All our communications seem to come through email so when you get a piece of post personally addressed to you then it creates an impression.
In this respect your client is no different from you. If they receive a personalised thank you note from you after a project then they will think of you as a great professional to work with and they will be far more inclined to give future jobs to you. For the time and cost it takes to write and post a thank you note, you can be securing future work that could be very lucrative towards your business.
Now you don’t have to wax lyrical when you’re writing a thank you note. Just a few sentences thanking them for the business, stating how much you enjoyed the project and wishing then well for the future will more than suffice. It’s most likely that they don’t usually get thanked in a formal way by people they work with so your thank you note will certainly make you memorable.
And for those clients who already give you regular work, how much do you know about them? Do you know when their birthday is? Do you ever send them a Christmas present? Well don’t get personal, but be a sensitive person. Sometimes I get calls from a French voice talent, who works with us at a distance. He always gets the jobs from us through e-mail, but he prefers to answer me on the phone. He doesn’t pick up his phone and call me only to negotiate his fee but also to have a chat and I appreciate that. He is self employed as most voice talents these days so he needs human contact and I need it too. He is straight to me when he is not happy with the fee or the script I’m forwarding, but always grateful to us. As he likes to say “you defend your beefsteak and I defend mine.” This makes a difference, because empathy is created and can be used when issues come up.
Once again, we’re not talking about grand gestures here, but you’re creating a great impression. When you express gratitude you’re putting yourself in the frame for future work, you will stand out from the competition and your client will be far more inclined to recommend you to others.
As well as the good feeling you get, sending thank you notes and presents is a very business-savvy thing to do. You can even go to the trouble of branding the cards and presents that you send so that your logo and business message is seen as well.
What do you think? Do you send thank you notes to your clients? Have you noticed that you get more business by doing this? Please let us know.