Customers are everything

Duh, that is obvious. But the customer base means different things to different businesses. Customer satisfaction is important to all companies, or so they will say. Yet, all customer bases are not equal.

You have a utility company, for example an internet provider. My home internet went out yesterday. The after-hours technician was unable to assist us. A technician called the next day, and after having me unplug and then re-plug in  a power source, announced a service technician would be required and the next available appt would be five days from today. In today’s world many of your household things, including the television, rely on the internet so unacceptable doesn’t describe the reaction to such news. Yet, options are limited. Recurring (daily) business model, yet a captive customer base when unhappy.

An auto accessory business, putting aftermarket products onto vehicles is another example. The average person buys six cars in their lifetime, owns a car for 8 years on average. So, if you provide this aftermarket service, you might see that customer once, maybe twice, over the span of your business ownership or their life cycle car buying activities. Customer satisfaction resulting in repeat business from that customer is not a huge factor.

At PlastiCert we are our customers’ supplier of choice and interact frequently if not daily. We query annually as to how their experience has been, but the true test is longevity of business relationship. There are thousands of injection molding companies across the United States and North America for that matter. With today’s product life cycles, even if a project does not get resourced, the end of life will terminate a supplier relationship.

While we service some 40 customers a year, the bulk of our activity is with the top dozen or so for revenue. Those customers have an average tenure of working with PlastiCert for 11 years. The median is 7 years.While those numbers are decent, remember we add new customers every year. These statistics get watered down by the newest, but we have a half dozen customers that have been with PlastiCert for over 20 years. The longest tenure is 26 years.

Synonyms for consistency include steadiness (stability/control/reliability), steadfastness (dedication/commitment), and evenness (consistency/uniformity/steadiness).

Now who wouldn’t want those qualities in their injection molder? See that in your current molder of choice? Maybe you should give us a call?