Finding a good supplier for your essential equipment is never as easy as it sounds. This is doubly true if the equipment that you need is in any way specialized, and even more so if you are working on a tight budget. There is so little room for error when you are paying for essential items such as switches, sensors and attachments.
During the pandemic, a lot of businesses realized that they needed to spend a lot more time working on their online presence. As a result, it can be even harder to tell whether you are looking at a supplier that will get you what you need, or one that you will wish that you had never dealt with. Here are a few tips to help you sort the great from the bad.
Look For Reviews
One of the simplest ways that you can start fine-tuning your search is by looking for feedback from customers. Now, it may not always be the best guide as you will always find companies that are able to hide their bad reviews and push the good ones, but why not try having a look online for businesses talking about their experience with this company? You could always ask the supplier for examples of their past work.
Look For Expertise
Expertise can be tricky to evaluate when you are looking at a website welcome page, but a little digging should show you just how much this supplier knows (or doesn’t). A good supplier will have struck a fine balance between making it easy for business owners who know exactly what they are looking for to find it, while providing enough material for others to ascertain what kind of item they need. Say you’re looking for a goab switch. A good supplier will have resources to explain what group operated disconnect switches do, how they work, and what you need to be thinking about when you are looking for a new one. Southern States offers a broad range of goab switches, and they have been setting the standard for more than 100 years.
Look For Excellent Customer Service
One of the worst-case scenarios is needing emergency assistance from an equipment or part supplier only to discover that they are totally disinterested in helping you out. We all know that bad customer service is a great way to destroy any chances of repeat business or fostering relationships with clients, which is why it should be easy to tell from a company’s website just how committed they are.
Look for the promise of 24/7 customer support with easy to find contact information. Look for details of the best people to contact in case of a crisis. Look for the option to outsource maintenance and/or installation work to the provider if you don’t have the time or option to train your own staff and look for a company that can offer that training if necessary. With staff shortages a real concern right now, having the option to utilize such an opportunity could make a real difference. Good customer service is not just about picking up the phone when you call, it’s an attitude that speaks volumes about the kind of business you’re working with.
