Are you a vendor or a partner?

By Amy Schwoeppe, Client Relations Manger

At FCi, we are very relationship-oriented. Being in the fulfillment industry, we believe it is extremely important to be partners with our clients, not just vendors.

In a partnership, there is open communication. We understand our clients’ needs by taking time to learn their business as well as their individual needs. We ask questions and provide feedback. We work together to find the best fit for each need. We help them build processes that deliver the best service for the most cost effective ways to achieve their goals. If something isn’t right, we work together to find a solution; we don’t just want to provide the service. Partnerships build trust and loyalty, which leads to healthy, productive relationships. A vendor is selling something, and we aren’t here to simply sell. We are here to help boost our clients’ business and provide exceptional service along the way.

If we were simply a vendor, why would our clients want to stay? The comfort of having someone looking out for your best interest, improving your processes, saving money and bringing innovation to the table – that’s why they stay; that’s why a partnership is successful. As a vendor, it’s a service or product for sale: no relationship… no insight… no feedback.

Our approach is why we have exceptional retention with our clients. We learn each piece of our client’s business and dedicate teams to be specialists for each client. We train and cross train for extensive coverage. We strive to understand the intimate details of each account, which gives us the advantage to identify issues and resolve them quickly. If you are in an industry in which your clients may benefit from the same approach, perhaps you should take this into consideration and not just be a vendor for your clients, but transition that relationship into a partnership.