Counselor Magazine March 2012 : Page 103CUSTOMER LOYALTY ere’s when you know you’ve created a loyal customer base: when clients become an issue in planning your wedding. Such was the case for Mercedes Castro, owner of Proforma Quality Printing ( asi/490049 ). Castro has owned her distribu-torship franchise for 12 years, but it was eight years ago when she – and her husband, for that matter – fully understood the depth of loyalty she creates among her customers. In planning the wedding, Castro started to add up the number of client con-tacts she wanted to invite. She quickly real-ized that she would need tables – multiple tables – at the reception to accommodate the numbers. “My husband couldn’t believe it,” Castro says. “I had four tables of just my customers.” Now that’s loyalty – and Castro knows the positive impact that those kind of deep rela-tionships have on her business to this day. “I really become friends with a lot of my custom-ers,” she says, “and it’s harder to fire a friend.” Yes, it is. Distributors know that the more loyalty they can create among their customer base, the better off their busi-nesses will be overall. However, finding this level of devotion can be difficult in a time when customers can be more edu-cated about promotional products than ever before. Plus, their ability to identify low-cost providers online is challenging the relationships that distributors have with clients like never before. h www.counselormag.com MARCH 2012 103 Publication List Using a screen reader? Click Here |
