Building Loyalty With Material Handling Customers

Dewitt, NY – March 22, 2010: While most businesses were hurt during the recent economic downturn, some thrived. What secret did these companies know?

In a guest-written article in the First Quarter 2010 issue of The MHEDA Journal, the leading online magazine for the forklift, conveyor, storage & handling, and general material handling equipment industries, loyalty strategist and consultant James Kane offers distributors three "beliefs" that will ensure the trust of customers, end-users, strategic partners, suppliers and employees.

First, customers must be able to trust you in order to be loyal to you. The people around you require competency, honesty, respectfulness and consistency.

Kane says that you will never receive credit for exhibiting such traits because the people around you expect them. "When someone agrees to do business with you or work for you, they assume you will do all these things or possess these qualities," he writes. "If you don't, the relationship will end immediately."

Second, create a sense of belonging, a sense that you are both on the same team.  "Whether it is a customer, an end-user, a supplier, an employee or another important person in your life, you need to become indispensable to them. You need to think about how your services and products can help them win," says Kane.

Third, the relationship must have a sense of purpose. Technology has revolutionized our sense of community, giving it worldwide scope. People need to feel that their relationship will result in something more than making money.

Read more of what Kane has to share on relationship-building in "The Science of Loyalty" in the January 2010 issue of The MHEDA Journal Online at http://www.TheMhedaJournal.org. For more information, contact Chris Powers, editor, (315) 445-2347, e-mail: chris@datakey.org. The MHEDA Journal's First Quarter issue was mailed to subscribers on January 15.