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At one point or another, we find ourselves accepting broken promises, lack of crucial communication, and poor-quality work from a vendor. Often, it’s a relationship that started well, and we convince ourselves it’s just a rough patch, believing things will likely return to normal. Before we know it, lack of quality and poor customer service becomes the new norm, and we start developing ways to work around it. This is a very understandable human behavior because change is hard, and the unknown is frightening. “Better the devil you know than the devil you don’t,” as the saying goes. But did you know that, by a very conservative calculation, the true cost of staying still is at least four to eight times higher?
I see this happen frequently, especially in our industry. Looking back at the new clients we welcomed last year, at least half were frustrated with poor service and beyond ready to switch. In each case, their frustration was just the tip of the iceberg. Once we dug deeper, we found numerous issues that had been ignored and were about to turn into costly emergencies. If you feel one of your vendors should be doing a better job, you’re likely underestimating the problem. Here are some of the many ways accepting an underperforming vendor is costing you today:
Unplanned expenses can significantly disrupt your financial plans for the year. For example, we took over a client last year who had been using equipment over 10 years old that was about to fail. Instead of allowing them to plan and spread out this expense, we had to ask them to bite the bullet because the failure of this equipment would have had severe consequences for their operations.
Emergencies can bring your entire operation to a standstill. If you have a hidden problem brewing and the vendor in charge is not proactively addressing it, you are in for some very stressful days ahead.
Outages can result in significant productivity losses. Prompt, attentive, and quality service from a vendor should always minimize outages. While some outages are unavoidable, most should be planned and managed. If you are experiencing frequent outages or constantly need to contact your vendor about issues, it’s a sign they are not staying on top of things.
Poor experience can lead to poor outcomes. If you dread reaching out to your vendor because you won’t hear back, get stuck on hold, or don’t have your issue addressed promptly, you’ll start avoiding it altogether. This learned behavior across your entire team will result in everyone tolerating issues that hinder their ability to perform at their best.
Lack of efficiency can significantly impact the speed and quality of your work. If you have five employees and each is losing 20% of their efficiency due to unresolved issues, the overall cost to you is equivalent to losing one full-time employee. This loss of productivity can have serious implications for your business.
Lack of access to expertise often goes unnoticed, but it can be a major disadvantage, forcing you to swim against the current. Technology is a critical piece of your business, and if your competitor has access to better solutions that translate to efficiencies and time savings, you will be at a disadvantage. This applies to any vendor. For example, consider a tradesman you use for carpentry. If they are not as skilled as your competitors, it will directly impact the quality of your work. Poor communication can lead to project delays, and inefficiency will limit your effectiveness. Ultimately, you are only as strong as your weakest-performing vendor.
While my examples are mostly from the IT field, I can see how most of them can easily apply to any vendor. A few houses ago I had plumbing issues so I found a guy with an excellent price and prompt communication but I had to keep calling him back to fix the same issue over and over. Then I found another plumber who was excellent at his trade but would take 20 tries to get him to show so I learned to deal with plumbing problems until I no longer could. The third plumber I found was prompt and skilled, and his prices were fair but guess what, when I needed him a year later again I would keep getting his voicemail so I had to find another plumber. Change is hard and frustrating. Sometimes something that was great at once or a perfect fit may no longer be. In the end, the cost of switching to a new vendor when you should not when you must is always cheaper than staying still.
– Burak Sarac, Team Lead
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