Eric Sohn
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Excellent point, Poonam. Now, my question for you is: if a good relationship keeps a supplier satisfied, how can you create a loyal supplier - one that will go above and beyond for you when you need it? And how might that enhanced relationship impact your results?
Consider my question from this perspective: what can you do in your relationship with suppliers to make them more successful? For example, larger companies have integrated business processes with suppliers in order to streamline them (and save both sides money, time and aggravation) and shared information with them to give them both better transparency into current and future needs.
Coach Eric
> Poonam Gupta wrote:
> Hi Folks,
>I want to share something that I learned a little hard way.
>See, we often treat our customers with all the care and pleasentness and slice off some of that pleasentness with our suppliers. COmmunications and respect are needed both ways to supplier as well as customers. We should alwys have the following points well taken care of:
>1. Find good supplier
>2. Keep good relationship with your supplier (yes, this is our duty)
>3. Always keep the back up as much as possible.
>4. last but not the least- after taking care of above 3 points, if something falls short, do not loose your breath. Work the issue out.
>Think of it as, if one of your key employee falls sick and his input is must to deliver on time. What would you do, fire the employee, have nervous breakdown? or go infront of the client and state the situation and seriously work towards making things work.
>Build business and have fun... otherwise no meaning of being your own boss.
>Poonam
>
>> Eric Sohn wrote:
>> Karen brings up an interesting topic: taking ownership of a customer relationship vs. passing the buck. In her case, her customer's problems were no fault of her own, but due to a problem with her supplier.
>>When supplier or vendor problems impact your customer, how do you handle it? Can you give examples where how you handled this sort of situation affected your relationship with the customer?
>>How do "little things" like this impact your business - for the better and for the worse? How can you minimize or manage the downside of higher-touch activities that may not be immediately revenue-generating?
>>Coach Eric
>>> Karen Stafford wrote:
>>> A few months ago, I had to switch a hosting companies (I'm a reseller) for the second time in a year because of lousy service. As a result, the speed in which I had to reset up sites, reconfigure some databases, redo e-mails, etc. really impacted my ability to do what I SHOULD have been doing, which was the regular service I provide. Getting in a hurry cut the quality down big time and caused a lot of stress.
>>>I'm learning right now to be more open about the time it takes me to finish a site. Normally, it can be done expediently, but in my agreement, I allow a couple of weeks extra for the deadline just because of techical situations like this. When this is explained to the customer, they understand it and appreciate it.
>>>The only thing I really had to work out is trying to express to the customers that my programmer and I were working to the best of our abilities to get the sites up and running again with the new company (which is terrific, by the way!) because they wanted all their stuff done NOW, and I was getting phone calls at off-hours, and calls about things that didn't even relate to the server, but related to their ISP and new computers:-)
>>>> Eric Sohn wrote:
>>>> Hi, faithful BBFFU'ers -
>>>>Does the need for "fixing" things now impact the quality of your business results? Does it change how you feel about working in your business? Please give examples.
>>>>And, most importantly, how might you change the way you work to better balance the need for speed with the need to produce the best result for you, your business, your customers and other stakeholders?
>>>>Coach Eric Private Reply to Eric Sohn (new win) |
