Purchasing Standards for Suppliers
This post is for suppliers.We want to help you help HappiLabs help scientists.HappiLabs is developing an evolving set of standards to help our Virtual Lab Managers decide which suppliers to buy from so that scientists get what they want, at a fair price, quickly. Keeping their experiments on schedule, within budget is good for science and global human health.We manage purchasing for >150 scientists, spending more than $400,000 per month from >200 suppliers. Sometimes we have no choice who to buy from because the scientist has a very specific request. But in many situations, we are given the flexibility to choose the supplier.Some suppliers stink at what we call the Purchasing Experience, and some are excellent. The gold standards on our internal ranking system are NEB and AbCam. They are reliable, quick, and give us the information we need when we want it.Here are 3 actions you can implement as a supplier to make us happy with your purchasing experience, and therefore, more likely to keep buying from you.
1) Get us a quote faster than 24 hours.
When we ask for a discount on an item we don't already have a quote for or we are buying in bulk, we don't want to have to wait 2-5 days. It's silly that we depend on sales reps in the field who can't respond to our requests until they get to a computer. Don't undervalue the inside sales rep.Fist bump to Matt G. from LifeTech (Thermo), Sean from P212121, Chris S. from VWR, and Marwan at Bio-Rad.
2) Send automated shipping updates.
To keep scientists on track and on-time we notify them of when their order will arrive. Obtaining a UPS, Fedex, etc tracking # is how we do this.We do not want to spend 5-10 minutes logging into your website or calling customer service to find the tracking #. NEB and Amazon are exceptional. Once an item ships, they send an email with tracking number. Fisher, you should know your "Shipping Notifications" are useless. Our Virtual Lab Managers have learned to ignore it. The "Here" link is a dead end. Can you fix this?
This is a winner:
3) Send automated invoice (PDF format is preferred)
Most companies do, but some don't, which require us to make phone calls to customer service or log into websites. Save us 5-10 minutes and automatically send this via email, and a PDF is preferred. Life Technologies (Thermo), Qiagen, and Amazon we're looking at you.Keeping scientists happy is our #1 goal, but keeping the accounting department happy is important too.
Bonus points if....
1) You have online chat.
VWR, P212121, IDT, Fedex....great job!
2) You provide us a dedicated customer service agent.
Our Virtual Lab Managers move fast, like Jimmy Johns. We do not like losing 5-10 minutes on the phone with customer service. Therefore, we've started allowing a dedicated customer service agent access to our team via a private Slack channel. Thank you to Sigma, E&K Scientific and the few others who have provided us a dedicated person. It is very helpful and allows us to post a question and come back to it later.
3) It takes less than 2 days to update a shipping or billing address.
We're constantly baffled by how long this takes for most suppliers. The process requires filling out paperwork and then waiting for some kind of approval. We understand, due to the nature of some supplies that are regulated, that it takes time, but better communication about timing will be appreciated. :)GE Healthcare, it's taking a week. What does this mean, from a customer service agent:
"I’ve started a work flow to have the address updated in our system."
Suppliers, we want to build a relationship with you. If you have questions, reach out: https://www.happilabs.org/contact/