Customer-centric is direct selling’s present and future. Actual customers buying real products, generating real success for opportunity seekers, as well as the direct selling companies they represent.
In today’s environment, with evolving consumer expectations and regulatory scrutiny, direct selling companies focused on building a strong retail base of satisfied customers who find value in their products are experiencing impressive growth and deserve recognition and acknowledgement for their efforts. Customer-centric equals success for everyone—distributors, direct selling companies, and the channel as a whole—rests on the long-term purchase loyalty of these customers.
Direct Selling News is excited to present a new Customer Centric Recognition (CCR) Program to celebrate companies that are leading the way toward a sustainable, customer-centric future for the industry. Qualifying companies utilize business models that boast high customer-to-distributor ratios and prioritize customer sales.
“Businesses built on customer acquisition and retention, especially those that meet the 5:1 and 10:1 customer-to-distributor qualifications of DSN’s CCR program will be the competitors to beat in this kind of marketplace and environment,” Stuart Johnson, Founder and CEO, SUCCESS Partners, says.
PROGRAM OVERVIEW
The CCR Program is based solely on a company’s customer-to-distributor ratio taking into consideration the following definitions:
- Distributors—someone who DOES have a distributor agreement in place
- Customer—someone who DOES NOT have a distributor agreement in place
- Active is defined as each customer and distributor must have made a product purchase during the last six months. Active customer and distributor counts are limited to those in the U.S. and Canada.
REQUIREMENTS & APPLICATION PROCESS
Companies who wish to submit an application:
- must have been in business for at least one year and have a minimum of $5 million in annual revenue
- complete an application
- information submitted must be certified by a C-Suite level executive or consulting/accounting firm
- submit a processing fee
The information is then used to determine a customer-to-distributor ratio. Qualifying companies must attain: 5:1 up to 10:1 for Gold status and 10:1 or more for Platinum status.
“It’s so exciting to launch a recognition of the values, integrity, and behaviors that will move our industry into a more sustainable future,” Johnson says.
To learn more about the program and benefits, click here.
What Executives Are Saying
“The customer purchase decision must be able to stand on its own as a ‘fair trade’ and then the personal touch by a caring consultant and the opportunity to earn by also supporting customers’ purchases is the icing, not the cake,” —Orville Thompson, co-owner and co-CEO, Scentsy, says.
“It is positive for the direct selling industry to see that many companies are shifting to customer centric models and being able to track the volume of sales to end-user customers as ACN has been able to do since inception. This helps to counter the flawed argument made by critics of our industry, that all sales are only made to the distributor.” —Dave Merriman, executive vice president, ACN
“We have embraced that our industry has the ability to fill a void in the marketplace…We have the opportunity with our person-to-person model to gather customers, unlike companies outside of direct sales.” —Mark Pentecost, CEO, It Works!
“This is worth getting good at! The benefits to the company (and the field organization) can be massive, long-lasting and far-reaching. Customer-centric growth is typically more profitable and stable.” —Garrett McGrath, President, Elepreneurs.
“I believe the days of just selling opportunity are long gone and that we have to lead with customer experience, customer education, and customer value.” —Brian Underwood, founder and CEO, Prüvit
“Kynect’s customer-to-Associate ratio is 9:1, not because of the FTC’s influence but because our main focus is creating value for our end-users.” —Bouncer Schiro, CEO, Kynect
