Building relationship with customers does not happen overnight. In the hotel and food service industry, where the primary goal is to please the customer, everything is done to highlight the customer experience. Even luxuries such as anti-stress pillows, soft sheets, and warm milk and cookies at midnight are provided with the sole objective of accommodating customers? requests.

One of the many small--but effective--gestures that businesses in the hotel and food industry can do is to have a promotional umbrella on standby when the client needs it. Rain or shine, a promotional umbrella helps build a company's reputation. It's reflective of the company's ethos and character, because an enterprise that obsesses about details aims to give only the best.

Nothing is more impressive to a customer than to have something on hand when it is needed. Hotels and bed-and-breakfasts must remember to have a promotional umbrella on standby at the reception. A guest arriving in the middle of a rain will appreciate being met at the hotel entrance with a promotional umbrella. It's a great way to welcome a guest, and a happy, impressed guest leaves a good tip. A promotional umbrella should also be placed conspicuously in guest rooms, whether at a bedside drawer or hung inside the closet, so clients can take it with them when it's needed. In addition, a bellboy or hotel personnel should be on standby at the entrance to receive a dripping-wet umbrella when a guest comes back.

Golf clubs, especially, should never be without a promotional umbrella. Caddies should always have one within arm's reach when the sun's heat becomes unbearable or when rain begins to pour. Aside from being a form of customer service, a promotional umbrella, with its large imprint area bearing a trademark, is an effective way of building exposure.