How to manage relationships with suppliers
Relationships with Suppliers Having great suppliers as part of your business improves your service to your customers as well as your efficiency. A good relationship with a supplier can also provide you with a much-needed business support that can provide a fresh perspective and encourage business to reach you.
After all, if your business is growing, so will your supplier's business. To maintain a great supplier relationship, you have to handle it the right way.
How to manage relationships with suppliers
Choose suppliers that match your values
If excellent customer service is important to you, choose suppliers for whom this is also critical. It is critical to good customer relations that any products, materials or services you provide to your customers have warranties or returns policies that match your own.
It is somewhat similar to interpersonal relationships - it is very difficult to maintain a relationship with a person who differs in basic values.
When choosing suppliers, consider their ethics, values, standing and reputation.
Understand your suppliers' needs
What is important to them? Do they need you to follow a process or complete paperwork in a certain way?
Respect their way of doing things and make it easy for them by following their processes and schedules.
Give them what they need when they need it. Stay up-to-date by providing things like insurance certificates, business information, and order numbers.
Become a premium customer
Think about what you love about your customers and do the same for your suppliers, pay on time and keep your records in order so you don't have to waste suppliers' time getting them to send things back.
In the same way that you go the extra mile to take care of a great customer, your suppliers will too if you are a great customer for them.
Placing some deposits in a goodwill bank can be very helpful if you need service from your suppliers at a later stage.
Maintain regular contact
Stay in touch with your suppliers and try to schedule a get together for a good coffee and think about the things that are working well and talking about the areas that need improvement.
Allowing both parties to provide feedback on what was helpful or difficult can be the spark for developing innovative ways to strengthen the relationship further.
Despite better preparation and planning, errors and misunderstandings can occur, it is important to address them with your supplier quickly and in a professional manner, always give your supplier the opportunity to be part of the solution.
In a good supplier relationship, it is essential to speak up when something is wrong.
Reward good service with loyalty
Many businesses complain that customers are not very loyal these days and they are always looking for the best deal, do you do the same with your suppliers?
If your supplier has done the right thing for you, reward them for your loyalty - just the way you'd like to be rewarded.
Business relationships are a two-way street. One party has no more power over the other - it requires commitment and maturity on both sides.
Understanding each other's perspectives and respecting their differences is key, along with understanding how each one benefits themselves as well as each other.
It requires open and honest communication and the ability to have difficult conversations if necessary. However, it's worth it, as a great supplier relationship can make a huge difference in serving your customers and lowering your stress levels.
The importance of your supplier management system
Suppliers have a significant impact on a company's success. Suppliers play a major role in increasing revenue, and this should never be ignored.
The ability to work with reliable and high-quality suppliers can help the business grow at scale.
Unreliable suppliers can create bottlenecks in your workflow, and have a negative impact on your customers' perception of your company.
There are different types of suppliers a business can work with:
Wholesalers and distributors
Wholesalers buy large quantities of merchandise in bulk and then resell them in smaller quantities for a higher unit price. They generally offer the lowest prices because they sell in bulk and are reluctant to handle small orders.
Manufacturers and sellers
These are suppliers who can handle the goods of many different companies, prices may be higher than wholesalers, but they handle small orders from a wide range of manufacturers within a relatively short period of time.
import sources
Domestic importers can act like local wholesalers and sell foreign goods to companies.
There are of course more types of suppliers, but no matter what types of suppliers your company deals with, they will all matter and most strategies can be used to improve relationships for all types of suppliers.
In the end, relationships with suppliers should be long-term, reliable and a primary goal for any company striving to succeed in the market, so let's learn about the strategies that can help achieve this.
Suppliers are your partners, and this partnership should be based not only on financial transactions, but also on mutual trust and loyalty.
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