Loftus, a long-time NCA Vendor Member, sent a letter to partners last week announcing that Casey Fitts was stepping down as president, and his brother Tyler Fitts was stepping up from his position of chief technology officer to become president. We asked Tyler a few questions.
NCA: How long have you been involved with Loftus?
Tyler Fitts
Tyler Fitts: My brothers, Casey and Cody, and I are co-owners of Loftus. We’ve owned the company for about six years.
How did you happen to buy the business?
Our family owns the retailer U.S. Novelty, which was a long-term customer of Loftus. When the previous owner of Loftus was getting ready to retire, he gave us the opportunity to buy the company and we were excited to take advantage of it.
What is going to change under your leadership?
We will have a similar direction, but with some strategic cost-saving measures and allocating our resources a little differently. We’re in good shape now, but there are some challenges in this industry that we see potentially affecting us, and we don’t want to let that get ahead of us. So we’re realigning in the market to ensure we remain stable.
Will customers notice these changes?
I think probably the biggest thing they will notice is that we're going to try to connect with them better to understand their needs and what we can do to fill them. That's going to be beneficial for both of us. We really want to be a key part of our customer's success going forward. I've been on the other side of that – with U.S. Novelty – and I know how important it's to have vendors that really take care of you and help you to grow and I want to be that vendor for our customers.
How will you connect with them?
We're rolling out some customer surveys to give us direct feedback about what they think we can do better, what they like about what we're doing, what they need from us, and what they don't need from us. This will help us set priorities. We're also working on a texting program, so if we have back orders we can let customers know what’s going on. So we’ll just be leveraging technology a little bit to better connect with our customers and support them.
Anything else you would like NCA members to know about the changes at Loftus?
Just that I'm excited to be able to work with them and try and figure out what we can do to better serve the association and its members. We're evaluating lines to expand, to cut, to bring in. Sometimes people know exactly what they need and sometimes something comes along and they didn't know they needed it. So we want to meet the needs customers know they have, and also try to find things that give them other, new opportunities.