Rewarding Your Long Term Freelance Writing Clients for Customer Loyalty

I just got off the phone with my Mom. We had a very interesting discussion about customer loyalty, which provides the inspiration for this post. You see, my mom’s contract with her calling plan is ending and she doesn’t want to pay the astronomical new rate. I suggested she contact the company and ask what plans they have in place to reward existing customers for their customer loyalty.  She wasn’t aware she could do this, checked it out, and indeed received  a discounted rate for the new package.

It occurs to me we should also be rewarding long term freelance writing clients for customer loyalty.

How do you reward your long term freelance writing clients for their loyalty

I began asking about customer loyalty programs last summer after being miffed at my cable company for offering attractive packages to newbies but nothing for those of us who have been with them for years. It’s great to want new clients, but shouldn’t we also have measures in place to ensure the happiness of our existing clients? Why should the new guys get all the perks?

It turns out many cable or phone providers do have packages in place for their existing customers, but you have to ask for them.

Why should we have to wait for customers to ask for discounts?

We sometimes talk about sticking to our guns when it comes to rates and how it’s not always a good idea to negotiate, but there are also times we when need to show our clients a little love by offering discounts or freebies. I’m not saying we need to give up the farm but if you’ve been making tens of thousands of dollars writing the content for a long term client’s website, maybe you can offer a free page or other service here and there for no other reason than it’s a nice thing to do.

There’s a client I’ve been working with on and off for the past five years. He comes to me first when he’s looking for a writer, always accepts my pay raises with good cheer, and never missed a payment. Every now and then he gets a discount  because I believe it to be good customer service.

Suggested customer loyalty rewards:

• A discounted rate for a large project
• One free page per XXX amount of pages
• A package rate, for example if the client wants a sales letter, marketing report and brochure you can offer it at a discounted package rate instead of an hourly, per word or per project rate.

Here’s a scenario:

You have a long term freelance writing client. Let’s say you’ve been working together for seven years. You have an excellent working relationship. He pays on time and you meet all deadlines and go on and beyond with your writing. He’s even dropped a bonus or two when you completed the project before deadline. He never had a problem with your pay increases because he knows he has to pay more to get the best. Now, what are you doing to repay his customer loyalty?

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