Hi,
This is a common issue and if you do a Google search about this issue, you will find a lot of discussion about this with many kind of opinions. Sitewide footer links are generally not a safe idea. Many people recommend making those links nofollow.
One solution could be to make the sitewide links nofollow, except the link in your customers frontpage footer. Then you'll get the link juice from the front page, but no penalty from sitewide links. Or what do other people think here, would that be a good approach?