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Presumably, you have a lot of choices of suppliers or vendors for your small business. How do you choose the best companies to meet your needs? How do you know that your existing vendors are providing you with the best deal? After all, every expense your company has affects its bottom line. Read on to discover tips for rating your suppliers or vendors.
Communication
Is there a dedicated resource for your vendor that you can reach out to quickly if there are any problems? Or do your questions go to an overworked sales rep or customer service department that shoots back an “I’ll get back to you within six days email.” It doesn’t matter if you are dealing with a Fortune 500 company or a small hometown operation, you have to be able to reach a supplier in case of an emergency quickly. You could potentially lose a customer if you don’t have a product in stock.
Flexible terms
Does your vendor allow for different payment options? Figure out which would be better, a one-time payment for a product or service or monthly payment options that will enable you to spread out the cost over a fiscal year? If your vendors are not able to be flexible on price, then perhaps you can find someone to supply the same product or service that can.
Do they have an easy-to-use app?
Does your vendor or supplier have an app that easily allows you to order more products or interact with customer service? Is the app available for iPhone and Android using employees? Is the app free and user-friendly?
Is your vendor or supplier in the cloud?
How is your supplier’s technology deployed? Is it in the cloud or does it have to sit on your network?
Does your vendor secure your data?
Ask your vendor hard-hitting cybersecurity questions. They should be able to answer anything that your IT department can throw at them. After all, if they are unable to secure your data, will they be able to obtain the data of your customers as well?
Does your supplier make you feel important?
When you reach out to your supplier or vendor, do they make you feel as if your business matters to them? Or do they make you feel as if your questions are a bother to them?
Is the vendor large enough to evaluate?
Of course, you should only spend time analyzing vendors that are critical suppliers. Save the analysis of smaller vendors until your main suppliers are determined.
Determine if your vendor is meeting their deadlines.
No one should tolerate repetitive lousy service. If your supplier is not meeting shipping dates or if they do not respond to complaints, it may be time to sever ties with the company. Depending on the length of the partnership, you may want to give them an opportunity to correct the situation.
Discover how other businesses are rating your vendor.
If other companies seem to enjoy a great relationship and service with a vendor or supplier, perhaps the problem is with your sales rep. Asking for a new partner should remedy that situation.