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There seems to be a growing disconnect between customers and their vendors. It seems these vendor partnerships have a flaw. Whose responsibility is it to educate the customer on the results of services delivered? The reason I am raising this question is that I have been reading a lot of things online and in forums from customers who are complaining about the lack of transparency with their vendor’s results. Customers are feeling vendors are not really partners in their success just someone who they hired.
Too often when clients come to us for help, we ask for their previous reports and we have been told that the previous vendor did not supply them. This has always puzzled me because I do not understand how a customer could allow a vendor to get away with not providing reports under the guise of their “lack of understanding” so they should just trust them.
This lack of a partnership approach gives all vendors a bad name but the day of reckoning is coming. There are now products and educational programs on the market that will help customers understand what their vendor reports are saying as well as new educational programs to help the customers knowledge increase as well.
It is time for clients to demand a better partnership with more educational interaction from their vendor partners.
Tools to Help Improve Your Vendor Partnerships
In terms of reporting on Digital Marketing, tools like SEO Moz or Conductor Searchlight make SEO (Search Engine Optimization) more understandable for clients.
ROI-BOT software aggregates many vendor digital marketing reports and tools in for dealers to easily see their information and thus have better conversations with their vendor partners.
For example, one of our clients said to me, “I love your ROI-BOT reporting tool. Each time I look I find something I can do to get more ROI out of my marketing efforts but the real value is having you and your team coach me on how to use the data. In 2 minutes you showed me something that will save me thousands this year. The value of our partnership is the education.”
I think more vendors are willing to provide that kind of value but customers need to know what questions to ask.
Here are some questions to help create a better vendor partnerships.
- How will you report on your results?
- How will you explain to me each of the important metrics in your reports?
- How will you help me to use this information to improve my business?
- How will you continue to educate me on the changes in the digital marketing industry?
- Are you willing to take the time needed for me to understand this information?
All of these questions put the vendor in a position to be of service. It also allows the customer to feel that they are being responsible to educate themselves in order to be a good partner to the vendor.
There are so many ways to improve your vendor partnerships but it takes both parties to create lasting success.
If we can be of help or if you want to run something by me, please email me directly at glenn@pcgmailer.com
Glenn Pasch is the current CEO of PCG Digital Marketing as well as a writer, National Speaker and part of the Educational staff for the Automotive Digital Marketing Certification courses.
If you liked this article, please share with others and connect with me @glennpasch