The Pro

Name: Shari Verrone
Title: President
Company: Stackable Sensations LLC (asi/332999) in Parsippany, NJ

For Shari Verrone and her team at Stackable Sensations, client appreciation events are an integral part of their business model and relationship-building efforts. “We invite our top clients,” she says. “We’re very generous because we appreciate them and we want them to know it.”

For their primary annual event, Stackable Sensations invites groups of top clients to enjoy dinner and a fun night out. To maximize the number of attendees, they deliberately avoid busy holiday seasons, particularly deep in the fourth quarter, choosing instead to focus on dates in mid- to late fall.

“We try to find a unique place that clients wouldn’t normally go to on their own, but that they’re interested in,” says Verrone. “We don’t do just dinner, because it tends to be forgotten, and we’re here to do better. We want to show them a fun time plus a great meal.”

And they’ve done it all, from Escape Rooms to paint-and-sips. But Verrone’s favorite – and one that’s proved a hit with invitees – has been dinner held at a nearby cooking school. Guests are divided into groups of three to five, which then agree on the course they’d most like to prepare. Then all recipes are cooked and served at a high-end sit-down meal. The distributor also ties in a cooking-related gift, such as a cutting board with an imprinted message like “We’re a Cut Above the Rest,” along with both companies’ logos. They’ve also done personalized aprons with the chef and guest’s names as an event memento.

“It keeps us top-of-mind,” says Verrone. “We want to stand out, be remembered and always bring the ‘wow factor’ to match the personality of our business. It’s an ongoing, valued relationship we want to maintain. Our main goal is for our clients to know that we’re fun, they’re fun, and we think relaxing outside the work environment is needed. Work is important, but it’s key to do something outside that realm.”

While the cost of such an event isn’t cheap (Verrone estimates that their annual night out costs about $3,000), it’s a worthwhile investment. “It definitely costs money, but our clients are worth it,” she says. “We want to continue to build and maintain our relationships.”

In the days and even months after the event, Stackable Sensations will send out periodic emails to attendees with fun photos and inside jokes from the night to stay in touch in a humorous way and keep the company top-of-mind with clients.

The annual night out is the capstone for a year full of regular smaller appreciation events. The distributor’s quarterly catered “lunch-and-learns” are held either at its facility in New Jersey, with its open floor plan and professional conference room, or at its clients’ offices. At an estimated cost of about $500 to $1,000 for each gathering, Stackable Sensations hosts one client at a time, and asks anywhere from one to eight different vendors to come and present their newest items to attendees.

“We like to display journals with each guest’s initials as place settings for the meal seating,” says Verrone. “We’ve also given out newly-released totes to carry samples from the suppliers, as well as chargers so their phones stay charged while they take pictures of items they like. Afterwards, we’ll send follow-up emails with details on the items that they liked, and had expressed interest in. Usually that interest turns into sales.”

Photos

Popular appreciation events utilized by Stackable Sensations include Escape Rooms and cooking school dinners.