What can suppliers do better? What do suppliers do right?

Just some info to add to the topic. For years, the main roofing suppliers in my area were ABC and Gulfside. In the last couple years three more have been added. Heely Brown, RSC and I don't even remember the name of the latest one as they just set up shop a month ago. But all 5 of these are major roofing suppliers. So we went from 2 choices to 5. If that don't cut into your market share, I don't know what will.

I'm definitely not spam. Although I think sometimes questions like mine are asked, then nothing ever changes, then the questions are asked again so people wonder why they keep having to answer the same damn questions again.

Late deliveries is a very big deal. Especially late deliveries with no communication. It's tough sometimes getting your people, all the way from the manager to the driver, to completely get this concept. Our business is unlike other sales businesses in that what you guys do with our products, determines your quality of life and income. You go to Walmart and purchase things, service doesn't really mean diddly. If they don't have what you are looking for you just get something else. Or nothing. Doesn't really matter. If the roofing supplier doesn't have it, or have it there on time, it's the difference in making money on the job or possibly losing the job all together.

Clover, I get what you are saying about having specialty tools. I'll admit, this is something my store hasn't done a good job with over the past several years. We have product in our showroom that has literally been there since 2006. But not after this year, and not after posts like yours. We're going to do an entire showroom refit soon. I'm going to make the showroom look like the Penny's Christmas catalog for roofers and siders. I'll have my contractors drooling every time they come in the store at all the shiny new toys...

Twill, I tend to agree with your credit sentiments. That's a tough subject though. One problem I have is, I'm part of a large corporation, and we have mostly strict credit policies. However, the local lumberyard will give "behind the counter" credit to everyone that walks in the door. That turns a lot of people into instant contractors that won't do business with us since they "helped them out". You would think that it would eventually bite them with all the credit loss, but it doesn't seem to work that way in the real world. These days it seems you never really know who is a safe risk and who will turn out not to be. Even with extensive checks, things change in people's finances very quickly, and it's usually the supplier that never gets paid.

I appreciate everyone's responses and I hope to see this thread continue as people think about what is important to them from a supplier. My whole point with this is to listen and allow your opinions to have a positive impact on my team. I'm actually really surprised to not see more posts and questions from other suppliers. What better way is there to get feedback from your target audience if it isn't just asking them?

twill: When a roofing supply store opened up near me a few years ago, I was gitty like a school girl walking in there for the first time. Products I'd only seen on the internet and some new ones.

They are kickin for sure, but I stay loyal to my local supplier for everything but specialty & some low slope stuff. People at my local supplier don't know that your supposed to use a scrub pad w/ EPDM seams. That doesn't matter to me, I don't want to learn from my supplier. They are always quick to deliver, go out of their way to help me if they can, and they throw my name around to customers.

I'm not sure why I'm the only one responding to your topic. Maybe some of the guys think of it as spam. I dunno but to further explain my reply, today I started on a reroof job that I had made a roof top delivery order on for 11 a.m. today.

The delivery driver arrived at 12:15. This might not sound like a big deal to you but it had a huge impact because I was short handed and we had rain moving in right around dark. (5:30) So I had to get the half of the roof that we took off put back on before dark. We finished it up at 5:29 pm. Had he been just 30 more minutes late we don't make it. Also in that last hour or so it started sprinkling rain, got windy and cold. If this delivery order had arrived on time we would not of had to suffer that last hour and would have gotten home to our families an hour earlier as well. This was unusual for this supplier but it happened.

I like where I do business because it's a smaller supply house, the service and loading of pick up orders is really fast, delivery orders are usually on time and they almost always have what I need at a fair price.

Also I do mostly repair work using just a regular pickup truck. They have a large roll off dumpster on site and part of our agreement is I get to empty out the back of my truck each time I come in to pick up supplies, or just come by, or after hours. This saves me a lot of money and time. Doing mostly repairs and being a small company, I don't purchase as much stuff as the larger companies do. Yet they do not discriminate against me because of that and that makes me feel equal.

Thanks Chuck for the reply. I hope this list is everyone's list because all this stuff is easy. Mostly just following through with all the promises we make as suppliers and treating people with respect. Common sense it would seem, although I know plenty of businesses that can't get any of this list right.

Wow. I would have thought this would have been a hot topic. Is it because people think it won't matter? That nothing ever changes? Or is is that everyone is 100% completely satisfied with the supply chain we have in the roofing business?

I really want to know some inside info on what makes you guys like where you do business.

Always having the items I most frequently use in stock.( Especailly the most common colors and brands of shingles )

Giving me a fair price based on my repeat business and properly notifying me before raising any of them instead of just raising them and sending a much higher bill than what I was expecting.

Providing roof top or ground deliveries in a reasonable amount of time and being on time for them.

Not acting like I'm your long lost buddy. I know that you don't really like me that way. It's just business and that's OK.