In response to my post about creating a client inner circle to recognize and reward your best clients and thus motivate them to remain loyal and refer others, I received an email from a lawyer who loves the idea but has questions.

His first question is about identifying clients, by name, when that may violate a client confidence, embarrass them, or otherwise look indelicate. The short answer is to get their permission before you reveal anyone’s name. If you don’t get it, or don’t want to ask, identify them by first name only, first name and last initial, or by a pseudonym.

Or don’t use any names. Describe them with a detail or two that won’t identify them specifically. For example, you could say which city they live in, or their occupation.

The client will know they were chosen, you’ll know, but your newsletter subscribers and other clients will only know that you had three new inductees this week.

The second question is about how to avoid letting your other clients see themselves as “second class” or think you might ignore them in favor of your inner circle clients.

One way is to handle this is to promulgate a written policy that lays out “the rules”. For example, with respect to returning phone calls, your policy might say, “Emergency calls always move to the front of the line; Inner Circle clients [or whatever you name your “club”] are handled next, in the order in which calls were received; all other calls will be returned after that, but in no case, later than 48 hours.”

Another way to handle this is to say nothing specific about how return calls and the like are handled. Figure out other ways to “reward” inner circle clients.

The third question was about the ethics of providing anything of value to clients. “Some people take the position that a dinner, or an event, or round of golf, or whatever, is something of value. Giving them away is fine. Giving them away because someone sent you a referral is not,” he said.

I’m not an expert, and of course each jurisdiction has different rules, but here’s my take on this. If you don’t promise a reward in advance, and/or, the reward is of nominal value (whatever that means), you’re probably okay. But you might not be, so find out what your rules say and follow them.

If the rules aren’t clear about what is and isn’t permitted, if things fall into a gray area, I would take the chance. But that’s me. I like to draw lines and argue. You may not.

If you like the idea of an inner circle but you’re concerned about some of these issues, here’s a suggestion. Start your inner circle but don’t tell anyone about it. That is, when a client qualifies, notify them privately. Only those who are in the club will know, your other clients won’t feel left out, and nobody will know anyone’s name.

Yep, a secret society of your best clients who get their calls returned on a priority basis and are otherwise made to feel special. Of course they’ll also get your secret decoder ring, because that’s still a thing.