Every year it’s a fascinating exercise reading the Elite Dealer nominations and then taking that information and creating those profiles that we’ve been publishing throughout the month. Unfortunately, some fascinating stories must be left on the cutting room floor to accommodate space considerations. One of this week’s Elite Dealer honorees, The Martin Group from Geneva, WI, has an interesting story about this year’s most significant win. What I found interesting about it was that they lost the client, but won them back after another vendor was unable to meet their needs. Let’s hear the story, which was shared by Martin Group’s General Manager Rebecca Turk.
For over 20 years we enjoyed an excellent relationship with a local bank where we provided all copying and printing equipment. Since their humble beginnings in a trailer on the construction site of their first location, we were there installing a used “loaner” copier and fax unit that would serve them during the construction process. Knowing how rough the environment would be in the construction trailer, we offered loaner gear so they would not hurt the new units they were buying for the new building. When the first building was finished we installed their new equipment and the seeds were sown for just how much of partnership we wanted the relationship to be.
Several years later during their expansion to what would eventually become 17 locations, they purchased two high-speed printers from us with the intent of using them with their new software that would enable them to print statements that included reduced copies of cancelled checks. Although standard today, then it was rocket science. After several months they realized the software was not serving their needs and exercised an out clause to get out of their contract. When they came to us and asked to return the printers, we allowed them to return the printers and returned the money they had paid for them. Yes it cost us, but again it is what we always tell our clients, our relationship is a true partnership.
Fast forward to last year, many years of a tough economy and our client was acquired by a slightly larger institution. To make matters worse for us, the new institution was taking them in a different direction for their copier vendor and we were informed that our time was over as their primary vendor and someone from out of state would be taking over all the acquisitions going forward.
It was a bittersweet moment. On one hand we were losing a long time client, but on the other hand our many friends who worked at the bank still had their jobs and the great surprise for them was the new parent company was in growth mode so for many of them new advancement opportunities were now available. As the transition progressed people within the local bank started talking with the management team and it didn’t take long for our history and our story to be told to the right people. Likewise, the dissatisfaction in dealing with another vendor was in stark contrast to our 20+ year track record of excellent service, support and partnership. Soon we had the opportunity to speak with the new management about how we could handle their massive growth and exactly what we could do for them.
By the end of this year we expect placements to be approximately 75 MFP’s and going into next year we expect similar to double the amount of placements. Given what we know about their growth plans, this should continue for many years to come. Further we are in the process of taking the entire organization to a true Managed Print environment giving our client the ability to know what every piece of paper coming out of every device is costing them.
Coming full circle, the end result of everything that has happened is something that was already writing on the wall for both organizations, we just had to take a little time for each of us to realize it. In our case we always say that the Martin difference is that we are driven by people; it represents both the reason why we do what we do – our family of clients – and the reason why we excel at what we do – our exceptional staff. Regardless of their growth, they will maintain their community commitment, the family values and their commitment to serve. We both have the same philosophy of running our companies; it just took a little time for us to reunite with each other. But now that we have, it is our pleasure to provide to them the same quality of service and relationship as they promise to their own customers.
