Customer Loyalty Scores Reveal ‘Best of Breed’ Printers

The best-run printers achieve over an 84 percent rating, or 84 percent of their customers are very likely to recommend them. These printers benefit in several ways:

• Customers become an extension of their sales force through positive word of mouth testimonials and referrals.
• Customers will turn to the printer they are most loyal to when searching for new services or projects.
• Loyal customers are quicker to adopt new services the printer rolls out.

The benefits go on and on. It takes long-term thinking to understand the life time value of a customer and how it impacts growth.

How do you know where you fall in the pack?
All this loyalty stuff sounds so basic, but you will be surprised to learn how individual printer performance varies. Let’s try categorizing printers into three buckets. Putting printers in boxes is dangerous, but humor me.

Best of Breed (>84 percent): These printers consistently achieve high scores, feel they still have room to improve, live by the rule “good enough never is,” are paranoid about losing any customer, and strive to preserve their hard-earned reputation. They feel reputation is critical to their success and doing the right thing is in their DNA.

These organizations are ripe for growth, continuous improvement and innovation. You would think they would become complacent, but they keep pushing ahead to preserve their reputation in the market, reinventing themselves when necessary, and investing in their team and infrastructure.

Middle of the Pack (74-84 percent): Most printers are average. That is why my stats teacher said there is a bell curve. Everyone can’t be on top. This group either strives to get to the next level, feels that being in the middle of the loyalty pack is fine because product quality is more important, or they service their top accounts with white glove service while others get second rate service.