Supplier feedback is a critical tool for buyers and suppliers. In fact, feedback is the only way for continuous improvement to be achieved.

“At Sourceit we wanted to improve our supplier Health Rating function by introducing qualitative feedback from the buyer experience that was transparent to suppliers. We’re pleased to announce that Supplier Feedback has now been launched and is included in our marketing leading supplier Health Rating feature”, says sourceit CEO Alan Paul.

So why provide feedback to suppliers?

The buyer/supplier relationship is critical and it’s worth focusing time on because it builds better buyer and supplier partnerships.

Providing feedback not only recognises a supplier’s efforts, but it also shows appreciation and is impactful across multiple areas of practice:

• sourceit provides a simple framework under which a buyer can rate their experience on each job,
• it allows other buyers to view supplier feedback independently of the Health Rating which is great when looking at adding new or unfamiliar suppliers to bid on a project,
• its fully transparent as the buyer feedback can be viewed by the supplier,
• it’s been designed to enable a buyer to deliver constructive criticism should something go wrong in an open and transparent manner, and
• it supports continuity of supply and innovative working.

How to provide feedback

The method of providing feedback to the supplier in sourceit has been designed to make it easy for the buyer.

We’ve taken the lead from other commonly used apps and display a pop-up screen at the completion of each job prompting the buyer to rate the supplier’s performance and provide comments if desired.

What ‘good’ feedback looks like

We know what good feedback feels like when we get it ourselves, and it shouldn’t be any different for your suppliers.

We recommend buyers take a few moments to consider how the supplier performed and consider all aspects of the services provided not just one positive or negative part.

But keep in mind that not all feedback is positive, so here are a few tips if you need to provide negative feedback:

• avoid an excess of feedback focusing on the negatives – keep it short, to the point and simple,
• don’t let emotions come through in your criticism, be clear and constructive – (it’s important for lessons learned and you’ll be working with these suppliers in the future), and
• be honest – no supplier will thank you for not being fully open in feedback, it does no-one any good and undermines trust.

And remember, some suppliers perform hundreds of jobs for you each year and one mishap should not eliminate all the good outcomes they’ve delivered in the past.

We’ve made it transparent

Good supplier feedback should be transparent, so we’ve enabled suppliers to have the opportunity to view the feedback and ratings buyers provide.

We’ve done this as it enables your suppliers to take corrective action if required, it’s part of the continuous improvement loop. But don’t forget to give them positive feedback as well that they can share within their business.

Summary

Feedback is a powerful tool that can be used to build strong partnerships and continuous improvement with your suppliers, it recognises good behaviour, and it helps improve any problem areas.

Having strong and transparent relationships with your suppliers reduces buyer stress, delivers better outcomes, and helps both businesses remain competitive and achieve great outcomes.

If you want to find out more about how sourceit can help you improve your supplier relationships and buy better, then use the link here to set up a time for an initial call with us, or check out our product video here.

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