I'm an executive in a services organization and sending handwritten holiday cards to select customers thanking them for the partnership in 2011. My executive POC at a large customer has lost his father in the past few weeks. I don't know him well personally (outside of our work interaction).
Is it appropriate to send condolences in one breath, while also thanking him for the business in another. The work we've done together in the past year seems meaningless in light of his father's death.
Thoughts?
A perspective
I don't know if I have any special qualifications for answering this question, but I would answer by saying do both, only not together. I think it is perfectly appropriate to give the same thanks to the customer as you do for all others. And I would send sympathies for the loss of his father in a separate card.
Janet
Two cards IMO
I second Janet's vote for two cards. I think about it like this:
The first card is coming from a business to a business for it's business.
The second is coming from a person to a person who is experiencing a painful time related to a personal matter. In the second letter, depending on how well you know him, you may not even need to mention the business relationship, and of course you don't want to use stationary suggesting that anything is happy or merry. I think plain or personalized would be just fine. I offer up a suggestion for critique; I might write:
Jim,
I heard of the passing of your father, and my sympathies are with you for your lose. I value our working relationship, so I am very sorry that you and your family must face this difficult time now. I hope that comfort and blessings find their way to you.
Truly,
Jaclyn
How about a holiday card and a phone call?
It's getting kind of late to do anything about this now, but here's my 2 cents.
I like Jaclyn's description of one issue being business to business to business and one being person to person. And for that reason, I would recommend sending the generic business holiday greeting, which comes across as professional (if impersonal). And then call him to express condolences. Of course, you can also say something in the phone call about the holidays as well, but in my opinion a phone call might come across as more personal.
If you feel somewhat awkward because you're not super-close with him, just practice your delivery before the phone call. Keep it brief and sincere -- he probably doesn't want to get into a whole discussion about this with a business acquaintance, but he'll remember that you thought to call, when so many others didn't. Obviously this isn't about keeping a customer -- it's because it's a decent thing to do for a fellow human you happen to have some type of relationship with.
I heard a guy once give some advice about emails that you have a hard time responding to because they would require a really thoughtful response and you never quite find the time. His advice was to bag email and call them. If it's important, last thing you want to do is either not respond at all (because you don't have time to craft it sufficiently), or send a trite email in response. But it's a lot of work to send an email that conveys the feeling you can get with a 30-second actual conversation, especially if it's timely.