Proactive Wishlists

There's nothing better than knowing exactly what someone wants as a gift. It takes the guess work out of it and saves hours of trolling through stores looking for that special something.
 
This is especially true at Christmas time, when you have many presents to buy and not much time to do it.
 
So imagine how the friends and relatives of your customers will feel if they could walk into your store and buy the exact gift that the person wants. Even better, imagine if it was behind the counter already wrapped and ready to go.
 
This is the kind of amazing service you can provide that not only wow's the client, it gives you access to new customers and increases your christmas sales.
 
To set it up is simple:
In Swim under the customer profile you will see 'wish list'.

1) To start, you need to populate the wish list with the items the customer wants.

The best way to do this is through a pro-active campaign.  You can write to your customers letting them know that they can create a Christmas wish list, so that friends and family will know what they want for Christmas. Give them options to make it very easy for them to add items to the wish list. They could come into the store to add items, or if they are busy they could email or phone through what they want and you can add it to the wish list for them. 
 
For your very best customers, you could first look at their history (under customer details select 'items purchased) and view all the items they have purchased. Then look at your stock for matching or complementary items, and when you send the letter, place these items as suggestions in the letter. Put the code of the item next to the picture, so they could just phone or email the code through if they want to add it to their wish list. 
 
For customers who buy your branded jewelry, you could include in the letter the new items being released by that brand. Let them know what's going to be hot this christmas and what the 'must have' items are. Again, include the codes so it is easy for them to request the items.

When creating the wish list, you can ask the client who they would like the wish list reminder sent to and record that persons name and details as part of the wish.

After you send out the letters, monitor the progress and follow them up. Put signs in store saying 'create your Christmas wish today' and when serving your regular customers in October and November casually talk about the service and get them excited about the idea and ask if they have placed their wish yet.

2) Once the wish list is created you need to send the reminders out. There's several ways you can do this:
- If you have collected the name of the person your customer wants to remind you can send the reminder by letter or email directly to that person. Monitor these and if they haven't purchased, send reminders as Christmas approaches. If they still haven't bought by Christmas Eve you could send a quick SMS to let them know you have the item wrapped and in store all ready for them.
- In addition to or as an alternative to the collected name, you can also create a 'wish list' envelope that you send to the customer. In it contains several copies of thier wish/s. You can present this on a nice letter or card with your store details, the name of the customer the wish is for and the items they would like. The customer could then give this to friends or family to make them aware of what the customer want's for Christmas. Be creative. You could call it Santa's stocking for [Customer Name], or [Customer Names]'s Christmas Wish...
 

3) As you make the sales, be sure to track the results of how many wishes were created and how many taken up. This will give you a guide as to how successful the campaign is.

4) And lastly, after Christmas, for all those friends and family members who purchased the item on the wish list, you can send a 'spoil yourself' note to them saying thank you for purchasing a gift for your loved one and here's a small something to spoil yourself. It could be a discount or store dollars or something similar. This way you are making a connection with these new customers, so hopefully next year, they will also be part of your best customer list and can create their own wish list.