Have you had this happen to you? A couple of attractive young sales reps (they normally travel in tandem) stop in unannounced and want to talk with you about your office supplies. The “blank” is usually filled in with “copy paper.” Then, they throw out a couple of other items, give you a couple of specials and see if they can’t get you to place an order. Pretty high pressure because they are probably getting a pretty healthy cut of the sale.
I have a friend in the office products industry (in another state) that shared with me that he matches ANY price on copy paper and just goes up even more on his toner prices to make it up!
One of our loyal customers just called me to let me know that there were a couple of young ladies traveling around our marketplace from Quill.com trying to take away our business from them. Fortunately, this person sent those two young ladies away and explained that they had a strong relationship with WJ Office. But, after 41 years in business, I also know that there will be folks who will not do what our loyal customer did.
My question is, how would YOU react to such a call if it was an outside global competitor (Quill is owned by Staples) who is going door to door with short-lived pricing pitches? The pitches are short lived as the pricing they offer for the first order does not continue. They bait you in with a seemingly unbeatable offer that they more than make up for with higher prices on all other items down the road. At WJ Office, our philosophy is to not only provide competitive pricing, but to also focus on the integration of your buying process with our selling process – in other words, productivity. If we can provide you with excellent pricing year round and can have the systems in place to provide you with not only free delivery but to place it in your office where you need it, we know that this saves time as well as someone’s back. If we can learn which products that you need most readily, we can help you list those on the FAVORITES section of our online ordering system so that you simply click on an item and enter how many. And, when you get over 95% of the items that you order consistently on our next delivery, you are not waiting unnecessarily or dealing the hours it takes to run to a store to pick them up. THAT is making an impact, not on the less than 1% expense, but on the 60-70% expense category of payroll.
At this time of year, we reflect with joy the good will and loyalty of our marketplace to us and customers who have become good friends and supporters. Our employees are not hired as temporary “bird dogs” to create a stir and move on. As I look down our list of folks I see employees that we have had for 24, 21, 19, 17, 14 years and more. These are folks who have enjoyed serving you and who also appreciate your loyalty. If you fit that definition of long time loyal customer, thank you – if not, we’d be pleased to have you give us a try.