It’s easy to think of a closed deal as the mountain top.
You’ve spent hours climbing up — customizing your pitches to every relevant touchpoint within the company, scheduling emails, and sitting through meetings.
What you have to show for the time spent is a signature and some extra dollar signs come payday. It’s all downhill from here.
In reality, the analogy is a little less clear cut. Your work as a salesperson doesn’t end with the finalized contract. It doesn’t even end with a good post-purchase process.
If you’ve done your job well, you’ve laid the relationship groundwork between seller and prospect early on. The ease of dialogue is there, as is a sense of trust. On the front lines, you’re the person making those initial promises, even if you aren’t hands-on in delivering on them.
Because of this, customers feel naturally inclined to contact you down the road as problems arise. This means you’ll need to balance that immediate reaction to punt issues to account services with a genuine concern for maintaining the relationship.
The value of keeping the right customers is real with the churn and burn of acquisition nowadays. Not to mention your bank account — in relation to your company’s decided sales commission plan.
Why Saying “Thank You” Is Important in Sales
In order to sell a product or service, you first have to sell a customer on you as a salesperson. They need to trust what you have to say and champion it above the competition.
This is why saying “thank you” in sales is so important: it speaks to your character as a person. And it’s polite.
When it comes to how you say “thank you,” an old fashioned, snail mail note is the best way to go. It may not be as immediate or easy to knock out as an email, but the effort goes a whole lot further.
Here’s why you should send thank you notes after closing a contract.
Thank You Notes Are Memorable
Here’s the thing: the average office worker receives upwards of 90 emails a day. But when it comes to personal mail, the average American household receives only 10 pieces of personal mail per year. A number that’s probably even less for personal mail at the office.
From a sheer volume standpoint, sending a thank you note helps you stand out. Everyone is so digital-focused that they’ve forgotten the power behind a physical letter. And because it’s so uncommon, it speaks much more to the effort taken to write and send — even if you’re working with a convenient sending service like Postable or Handwrytten.
Thank You Notes Build Relationships
As previously mentioned, your relationship with a customer doesn’t end the minute they sign that dotted line.
It’s just beginning.
If you simply move through the motions and pass them off to account services without a second thought, the relationship will suffer for it. Especially after all of the work put in to earn a client’s trust.
Thank you notes serve as a reminder of why customers opted to sign with you in the first place. They’re a means of reassurance — setting the right tone for your partnership in the long term.
Thank You Notes Drive Referrals
Referrals are everything in sales. They’re one of the most valuable prospecting methods for generating new leads because they’re based in trust.
To pass your name along to a close friend or professional acquaintance, your customer is putting their own name and trustworthiness on the line. This means they really have to believe in both your sense of character and ability to get the job done.
The effort associated with a thank you note speaks to your interest in the ongoing relationship with a client — not just the payday. It’s an investment of time, something that is truly scarce and valuable in a world driven by productivity and screens.
Thank You Notes Speak to Your Personal Sales Brand
Salespeople are a dime a dozen. To stand out and make more sales, it literally pays to develop a personal brand.
Doing so is partially determined by the creative aspects of your brand: how you present yourself through a personalized scheduling page, the tone of your writing, a logo (and so on). It’s important to be cohesive, so consider monogrammed stationery for the sake of further driving home those personal brand associations.
Developing your personal brand is also about the action you take. It’s how you conduct yourself and drive home trust. Above all else, it should be reflective of the values you align with when creating new business and building relationships for the company you represent.
What to Include in a Thank You Note
There are so many tips, tricks, and templates out there for how to write a thank you note. But at the end of the day, you can’t go wrong with simply being genuine.
Keep in mind the following pointers in doing so:
- Address your customer by name. This drives home a sense of personalization and solidifies the relationship beyond that of a signed contract.
- Incorporate the finer details. You want your customer to remember why they’ve made the right choice in partnering with your company. Call out any relevant tidbits from past discussions to demonstrate your dedication.
- Show gratitude. What else would you expect from a “thank you” note? These deals contributing to not only your company’s success, but your livelihood. Genuinely express your appreciation for these partnerships, especially when your client could’ve easily chosen to go another route.
- Express excitement for the future. You want this relationship to last, so make it known that you look forward to being along for the ride as everything unfolds. It’s important that they see you’re invested, even if you’re less present in a day-to-day capacity.
Final Thoughts: Why You Should Send Thank You Notes After Closing a Contract
Sending a thank you note is good business. It goes a long way to think outside of the [in]box, so make the play and further strengthen those newly signed contracts for the sake of all your future closed deals to come.
Need help building your customer relationships from the ground up first? Get started with a 14-day free trial of Cirrus Insight to streamline and solidify sales communications across the board.
