In a traditional pallet and lumber bid process the customer requests a product or service, then several vendors place competitive bids to the customer and after review, the lowest price vendor is awarded the business. Historically, this was a successful process. However, this process typically no longer works with the current environment. 

In today’s Timber Talks, let’s discuss how by changing your current business practices, you can become the best value-added supplier to your clients.

Companies across all industries feel the intense pressure of labor shortages, product availability, raised prices, and much more. These factors provide you with the ideal opportunity to position yourself as a value-added vendor to your clients. Through supplier collaboration, you can provide a deep understanding of the clients’ needs and creatively work to find significant new sources of services and products that benefit both.

Presenting clients with different options to accommodate their demands versus responding with a quotation or just a plain “no, we can’t”, can create more of an opportunity to become invaluable to your clients and an integral part of their purchasing process. Communication and customer follow-up is a crucial part of Timber Industries’ current business processes. 

With the current landscape, customers no longer seem to require a contract to be approved. What they need is a purchase request placed for products to be shipped out on autopilot to arrive at predetermined times and dates. They need a process that is secure, predictable, and on schedule. The process has changed, so this is a huge adjustment for the manufacturing industry and ultimately,  customer support is as important as ever before in order to be a successful supplier. 

Clients and vendors should work together as a team to create efficient processes for their company. By collaborating and redesigning the way they purchase products, together, will lead to more long-term, successful relationships. 

At Timber Industries, working together as a team with our customers and not just as client/supplier has strengthened our relationships with our current clients and will continue to help us with future clients.  

Do you agree? Can client-vendor collaboration be the solution for suppliers? Don’t forget to share your thoughts with us!