Inside ICI The Customer – Supplier Relationship By Joseph E. Fritz, Executive Director Investment Casting Institute
number of areas to not only learn how the ICI can better serve the industry, but also to learn and share how the industry can better serve itself. Since the February issue of INCAST
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Magazine focuses on the supplier with the publication of our annual Buyer’s Guide, I felt it most appropriate to publish the results of the Customer- Supplier relationship survey at this time. In doing so, it is my hope that suppliers take a close look at how they are doing business, compare it to customer preference and take appropriate actions to further enhance the industry’s dynamics. The survey was comprised of 18
questions directed at the Customer- Supplier relationship from both perspectives. There were 46 suppliers responding to this survey that had sales or product promotional responsibilities and 52 customers that either influenced or specified procurement decisions.
t last year’s Technical Conference and Equipment Expo, we surveyed our attendees in a
Modes of Communication We addressed the manner with which customers prefer to engage in supplier communications. When polled on this topic, customers showed a strong favor for face to face communications, with 47% of the respondents indicating that a customer on-site visits and trade show interactions were preferential. E-mail correspondence was second at 36%, followed by telephone communications at 11%. The remaining 6% included mail, offsite meetings, and text messaging. In comparison, 34% of suppliers
have indicated that preferred method of communicating with customers is through direct selling or face to face meetings. E-mail and other forms of digital communication account for 43% of the responses. Telephone communications accounted for 13% of the responses, followed by a reliance on other forms of digital communication, accounting for the final 10%.
Business Solicitation Communications To ascertain a more detailed understanding of the customer perspective, the survey delved further into three of these methods of communication, direct sales calls, e-mail and cold calling, as they pertained to initial business discussions.
When customer sentiment was
polled in regards to direct, face to face communications, 67% of the respondents were either positive or strongly positive as it pertained to the effectiveness of these interactions, 14% were neutral and the remaining 19% viewed these meetings somewhat negatively.
In addressing questions pertaining
to e-mail solicitations, customer respondents were almost equally divided. Those favoring e-mail accounted for 33% of the responses, as opposed to the 31% citing disfavor. The remaining 36% of the respondents were neutral with regard to this mode of communications. Cold calling was viewed negatively
8 ❘ February 2018 ®
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