Mary Kay Preferred Customer Program Problems
Written by Parsons Green
The Mary Kay Preferred Customer Program allows a consultant to submit a list of customer names to Mary Kay. For 90 cents per customer, Mary Kay will mail those customers a Look Book. Look Books are produced quarterly and contain a free sample. The cost for mailing these books directly is around $2, so the consultant is saving money on postage by having the company mail them out. Some consultants will even order their extra copies through PCP because it costs less than ordering blank copies on Section 2.
The benefits of PCP are mentioned on several non Mary Kay affiliated pages.
Mary Kay does not track retail sales to customers by consultants, so none of these figures can be backed up by any real data.
With the December 2023 updates to In Touch, one year later…. several consultants reportedissues with the quarterly Look Book that mailed in November just in time for the Holiday shopping season.
Consultants are paying Mary Kay out of their pocket for these mailings and then have to escalate to the company on unmailed catalogs.
How can you sell the product if you’re having to chase down a 90 cent refund? How do you explain to a recruit that this is a great company to align with when they miss sending catalogs for 80 or 124 customers that you have PAID FOR.
Why is this system still broken a year after it was upgraded?
Does Mary Kay even care as long as consultants are still ordering?
Visit the
The last question is most poignant – Does MK even care if as long as consultants are still ordering? (I would go with “NO” )
As a side note, the cover of this Look book is weird with the pink gloves preparing to do something to the globs of cream.
I still circle back to the concept that they are trying to get the sales force to self destruct, so they can bring in a new model of selling. Would the affiliate model be as lucrative for corporate, however?
It really is about getting those newbies onboard ASAP with a boatload of goodies. And finding people like me, like the post about which consultants to “coax” (CON) into becoming directors. They people who will order big amounts and hopefully also find people to order big amounts.
Oh, whoops, people who’ll dream big and chase their dreams. That translates to order big and find more people to order big. So the top dog has a big paycheck.
Such a random response from me. It feels fitting on a day where it is -15F outside. As a final moment of randomness, I always thought it strange they called it PCP (preferred customer program) – same as a street drug. Maybe it was intentional… hmm…
“I still circle back to the concept that they are trying to get the sales force to self destruct, so they can bring in a new model of selling.”
I’ve been thinking that all along, too. The consultants are the customers. That’s been proven time and again, for all you lurkers out there. If you were buying anything else for yourself, would you continue to patronize a company with such a horrible glitchy website? One with customer service whose response is basically “tough toenails” when you call them to resolve a problem? I do most shopping except groceries online. Mistakes happen, of course, but every outfit from Amazon down to mom and pop shops have been great in the customer service department.
I can’t tell you how many catalogs I get a day in November/December. Maryland Square in particular has been threatening me with “this is your last catalog! We mean it!” since like 2005. My sister used to do marketing for a major auto parts retailer and their annual catalog was Serious Business. The people involved in its production basically weren’t allowed to sleep until it was composed, proofed, printed, received, proofed again, and sent out right on schedule. They have contingency plans for computer failures, breakdowns at the printer, bad weather impeding delivery, you name it.
Now, Mary Kay is a 60+ year old, allegedly multibillion dollar company. Christmas is the shoppingest time of the year. If LL Bean can drop a 60 page catalog in my mailbox once a week for two months, MK can damn well put out four Look Books a year.
IF THEY WERE IN THE BUSINESS OF SELLING PRODUCT TO END USERS, THEY’D DANG WELL MAKE SURE THEIR LOOK BOOKS GOT INTO AS MANY CUSTOMERS’ HANDS AS POSSIBLE. But they’re not. As long as you, the consultant, keep ordering, money keeps flowing upwards into their pockets. They don’t care what happens to the stuff once you’ve bought it. They don’t care about your customers. Printing the Look Books costs them money and they don’t like that.
The MLM model is doomed. Get out now and save yourself the aggravation.
I agree; the cover photo is very weird!
It’s advertising MK’s new wrinkle product, which is “…inspired by a widely used wrinkle-relaxing injection treatment…” “A no-needle alternative.”
“that’s a waste of time our company needs new People…” NOT “YOUR” company, that’s so delusional it’s pathetic. It’s like saying that because you have a food truck and you sell Pepsi, that Pepsi is your “company.” Also: You’ve sorta inadvertently codified what MK does indeed need – constantly.
…Or like being a United Airlines Premier Status “frequent flyer”. Just because you get perks for buying lots of tickets and joining their program, that doesn’t mean it’s “your company”. I sometimes call the consultomers “frequent buyers”. 😆
Wow, this is something. They charge consultants when ordering the look books, then maybe they send them out? It is up to the consultant to confirm whether they were received?
This is not legal, and is ripe for a class action. Mary Kay knows who they sent to and who they did not send to. They should issue refunds for the ones they failed to send to, without consultant involvement.
Considering the relatively small individual outlay, and the consultants’ love for Mary Kay Corp, I don’t see anyone initiating such a class action. This is just another example of the low view Mary Kay Corp has of their sales force.
In the early 2000s, there was a similar issue when the program shifted from Direct Support to the Preferred Customer Program. We used to fill out paper forms to enroll our customers, and when MKCorp shifted to online enrollment, problems arose like mad.
The company didn’t care then, and it doesn’t care now.
How do you “run out” of catalogs when you know how many you need to print in advance. 😒
**Ding Ding!** The company knows exactly how many to print- you have a deadline for submitting to make sure your ‘customers’ get their book.
Why are they complaining about following up with their customers? I mean, you’re in sales, you sent a catalog, isn’t the next step asking “Mitsy, just checking to make sure you got your LookBook. Anything in there pique your interest? Can I go ahead and get that for you? Sample? Great!”
I sprained by R wrist so ignore the typos please. I remember doing PCP’s on paper and all of my coustrners got their Look Books. One year we were in Las Vegas for a thing (fall advacne?) my SO at the time had to fill the names out b/c I was in “classes” all day long and PCP’s were due. His printing was worse than mine and they still got them. This company is tanking and I couldn’t be more pleased.