How I Wished My Best Customers on Their Birthdays (opens in new tab)

Great reminder on building and maintaining relationships. The only part I disagree with is 'not bothering with spell check.' Even your best and most familiar customers would like to see intelligent, competent emails from the vendor they spend the most money on (no matter how close you are to them).

How do you collect your customers birthdays?

This is great. For the past two holiday seasons, Discover has sent me a seasons greetings card in a non-business envelope with an actual stamp and my name and address handwritten.

Both times, the card included a $5 gift card to Starbucks and a "thank you" for being a Discover customer. Both times, I opened the card expecting to find a message from a friend or relative based on the appearance of the envelope.

That's much different and more personal than an automated birthday message or an automatic discount on an item during the month of your birthday. It might sound cheesy, but these kinds of things really do stay in your memory and help to create a human connection, even with big companies.