When the month of November finally rolls around, the excitement around Thanksgiving is almost palpable. While everyone looks forward to tasty food, football and time with their families, it’s also a great time to reflect on what you’ve been thankful for this past year. As a business, we are always thankful for our clients! After all, they are the key to our business’ success!

It’s vital to show your customers they are appreciated and solidify the bond that could shift them from a current customer to one that’s lifelong. A great example of this is TD Bank’s ATM (Automated THANKING Machine) campaign.

In 2014, over 20,000 TD Bank employees started the initiative by handing out green envelopes containing $20 to every customer in more than 1,100 branches across Canada. In addition to that surprise, other TD Bank customers were told they would receive a deposit directly into their account. That wasn’t the end of it, though. A handful of specially selected customers were in for an even bigger surprise.

Showcased in the heartwarming and now viral video below are the interactions between these customers and the “Automated Thanking Machine” TD Bank set up in a handful of branches.

Surprises ranged from tickets to Disneyland for a family that had never been able to take their kids on a vacation, to throwing out the first pitch at a customer’s favorite baseball team’s game, to plane tickets to visit a woman’s sick daughter.

While this initiative is definitely a more colossal one that isn’t necessarily feasible for other businesses of various sizes to replicate, it’s a great example of how showing genuine customer appreciation can make someone a lifelong customer. In these cases, it could even potentially create generations of lifelong customers!

Taking the time to thank your customers whether it’s through a quick hand written note, discount, or in this case a surprise gift, will set you apart from your competition. It’s also a great demonstration of the superior service you provide that the customer can expect in the future.

So in anticipation of this Thanksgiving, brainstorm some ways (big or small) that you can thank your customers. It’ll go a long way!

Was there something you did to show customer appreciation that was a huge success? Leave your experiences in the comments below!