Why Most Companies Want To Abandon Their Suppliers

Corporate buyers are slated to leave their supplier partners in droves, according to new research released Thursday (March 10) by Gallup.

The Gallup poll found that suppliers could lose two-thirds of their customer base because they are not adequately meeting the needs of their clients. Specifically, researchers said, suppliers are providing low levels of customer engagement and operating without a customer-centric viewpoint of the organization.

“Realizing the effect a customer-centric strategy has on their business performance is crucial to creating authentic growth, and companies in Gallup’s database that are actively measuring and managing their customer-centric framework are finding that problems are occurring less frequently than before,” said the company’s global practice leader, Ed O’Boyle, in a statement.

Analysts also found that just 29 percent of B2B clients are fully engaged, defined by Gallup as being emotionally and psychologically attached to their supplier partners. But 71 percent said they are ready to ditch their suppliers and take their business somewhere else, reports said.

One-fifth of B2B customers said they have encountered a problem either with their corporate partner or the product they provide. Meanwhile, just 40 percent of customers said that their supplier resolved that issue.

Worse, just 5 percent of corporate buyers said they are “very satisfied” with the way their suppliers and vendors handle any problems with service.

But, according to Gallup, suppliers’ customer engagement scores correlate positively with profitability, sales and customer attrition; researchers found that those with higher scores outperformed their less customer-centric counterparts by at least 30 percent across these areas.

The conclusions are found in Gallup’s “Guide To Customer Centricity: Analytics and Advice for B2B Leaders.”