This April marks 18 years that we’ve been Melaleuca customers!
During that time, not surprisingly, there have been many changes: product improvements, new products, expanded product lines, more product and service choices, enhanced loyalty incentives, and many other positive changes that have kept us loyal for so long. One thing we’ve seen very little of are price increases and most of what we have seen is very recent. I think it’s safe to say we’ve seen more of that in the last 3 years than the previous 15 years, but even then, significantly less than we see elsewhere.
Some very important things have not changed. Melaleuca’s core values, like every product must be safe, effective, and affordable, and their lean practices to keep prices reasonable and value as high as possible, remain as secure as ever. The $19 a year enrollment fee and the 35 product point monthly minimum to continue receiving 30% to 50% product discounts has never been raised even though it’s easier to achieve with so many products. The fact that we would be spending about the same amount or more elsewhere for significantly inferior (even toxic) products continues to remain true.
Also, every year Melaleuca publishes their actual income statistics, and one factor that fluctuates very little is a form of the “80/20 principle” which is true in many areas of life. These reports are unique in at least two important ways: 1) I haven’t seen non publicly traded companies willing to openly reveal this type of information, and 2) it clearly demonstrates that Melaleuca is a product quality and customer satisfaction driven company. Roughly 80%, with deviation never more than a couple percentage points, are strictly happy customers who remain loyal to ordering products. Only about 20% take advantage of the income incentives and there’s no need whatsoever to coerce the other 80% to do anything unnatural to them.
It’s strangely ironic that such sensible attributes that ought to be common in a free market are actually unique.
Melaleuca does everything possible to take good care of the entire 100% and we’ve been here for 18 years of that effort. For the first 13 years, I was part of the 80% and the only (and still optional) persuasion skill needed now is finding people willing to simply try the products. Melaleuca has plenty of mechanisms to help make that easy for every new or potential new customer, and that also hasn’t changed. There’s yet one more percentage fact worth mentioning; that 96% of those willing to try the products end up reordering.
Those are some pretty good non changes.
To close with just one more actual change that is also highly positive, our experience as Melaleuca customers keeps getting better!