How good of a customer is your company to your suppliers?

Our reader poll today asks: How good of a customer is your company to your suppliers?

• We’re a great customer! We treat our suppliers as true partners and treat them well. 36.30%
• We’re a good customer. We try to make it easy to deal with us. 47.41%
• We’re not a good customer. We can make things challenging for our suppliers. 14.81%
• We’re a bad customer. We make things really difficult for our suppliers. 1.48%

Strong supplier relationships matter. 84% of you report having solid relationships with your suppliers. That’s just smart business. When it turns into crunch time for a supplier, which customer are they going to work harder to support when supplies get low or deliveries get challenging? Obviously the customers who treat them well. For those of you in the 16% who say your supplier relationships are bad, what can you do to improve them? What small actions can you start taking now to show them they matter to you? It could b simple things like offering better payment terms, not being adversarial in negotiations, or just sharing information that helps them run their business more efficiently. Small steps can go a long way. And for the 84% of you with good relationships, it’s still advisable to talk with your suppliers about how you can make things easier for them too. They likely value your relationship and won’t complain proactively but if you solicit feedback, you might find the relationships get even better.

– Mike Figliuolo at thoughtLEADERS, LLC

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These results were originally a SmartPulse poll in SmartBrief on Leadership which tracks feedback from more than 240,000 business leaders. Get smarter on leadership and sign up for the SmartBrief on Leadership e-newsletter.