RETENTION & EXPANSION

Retention of Companies in Burlington is a Priority

Burlington Economic Development Corporation (BEDC) has developed, and is successfully implementing, a comprehensive business retention program for the Burlington business community. The program is based upon the customer retention theory:

"It is easier to take care of an existing customer than to develop a new one and, if you don't take care of your customers, someone else will"

BEDC's, Burlington Calling, follows a rigorous process for selecting companies, arranging interviews, conducting interviews and recording and analyzing data. The program has been designed to answer key questions and enable the BEDC to interview senior executives to:

• Gain insight into the dynamics of Burlington's economy
• Evaluate the company's relationship with the community
• Evaluate growth potential, risk of relocation or downsizing, satisfaction, and employment trends
• Identify how public services can be improved
• Understand the positive and negative attributes of Burlington as a place to do business
• Develop value added services for Burlington companies

Burlington Calling has proven itself to be a powerful planning tool for service delivery in the municipality. We are able to quantify CEO satisfaction levels with services provided at the local and regional levels and we are able to feed this back to operating departments for improvements. The program has also directly led to company specific actions that involved providing key contacts to other government agencies and educational resources. These linkages help companies address issues such as: export development, financial assistance, employee training, research & development initiatives and expansion/ relocation assistance.

For further information, please contact Gillian Sheldon, at BEDC on 905.332.9415 or click here.