Ever thought of running your business without the interference of a service provider?

It could be the shipping and logistics company you partnered with or the cybersecurity company that caters to the privacy needs of your organization. It can also be the software-vendor that claims to offer legit SaaS products or maybe your cloud hosting provider. To put it this way, you will always need to rely on third-party service providers.

Now, given the rising threat of cybercrimes, data breaches, and malware attacks, can you trust your service providers and then, how?

As for the first part, trust is something that does arise out of the blue. Of course, you can trust these providers, depending upon whom you pick. If you are careful before making a choice, you can easily inlay trust on third party providers. The key lies in making the right decision and how do you do so?

Wait, before we answer this, let’s walk down the part where we see if you actually need such service providers or their services?

Importance of a Service Provider

Often, organizations are of the view that they can run and successfully execute their business operations without seeking help from third-party providers. Suggesting that one cannot operate would be a misjudgment. Enterprises can carry the workload and take charge of every other operation but that is not beneficial considering a few points.

For one, service providers are their domain experts. They own the knack to do their job better and faster. Consider, for example, you need to ship a few products to customers or a B2B client. Hiring a truck along with a driver and dispatching the product yourself will definitely cost you money. Also, the efficiency would not be as that provided by a shipping and logistics company.

Whether in terms of speed or quality, you can never match the offerings of a dedicated shipping company. They reign in their domain and know all possible ways to speed up the delivery, which of course, you would have no idea. In the wake of the above, it is always better to leave the job on to the domain experts.

Why Is It Important To Cultivate Trust?

It is obvious that third party service providers are an integral part of the organization and there is no way a business can function effectively doing everything in-house. With this, there arises a second question as to why trust is important when you partner with different service providers.

Whether it is the logistics company or your cloud service host, their offerings are what determine your success. For instance, suppose you partnered with a hosting service company. All your offerings and website are hosted over their platform. If at any point in time, their network fails, or say, they fail to stand by their promises, your business would stop. And for your customers, it is you who failed not your service providers.

To put it this way, customers consider the service offered by these providers to be provided by you and your company. If under any situation their services drop, you are bound to lose your potential customers.

Similar is the case with the logistics company. If you deliver products but the company isn’t able to meet the requirements, customers would have the view that your business isn’t worth. Hence, trust plays a crucial role in every business. It is not just about the product or the service but the fact of whether or not, can the users rely on you for your business.

So, what’s next?

How can you trust service providers?

5 Steps to Build Trust in Your Service Provider

Building trust isn’t something you do in a day but requires tremendous efforts. In case, you have just started the best way to do so is by conducting research on the different service providers and their corresponding offerings. Now, there could be views, reviews and a lot of suggestions available online and this might create confusion.

So, how do you validate the offerings?

One way is to look for customers that have had collaborated with these providers. Reference customers, one that is ready to share their experience is worth connecting. You can either look for them yourself or to avoid any fuss, simply ask the providers to suggest some. Even though they might be choosy, these customers are worth talking to, in terms of the products and offerings of the service provider.

You can either set up a meeting or have a vocal conversation with such customers to get an idea about the company. Once you are assured about the quality of the services, you can then have a direct conversation with the service provider on different terms.

As such, there are a few things that must be known beforehand. These include:

1. References: We have already stated this above. Put up a direct request for references. It is kind of a filter and renders significant information. Where the spammy companies would never share their customer list, the ones that are legit and confident about their offerings will never have a second thought.
2. Ask Questions: Before you finalize on a particular service provider, make sure you have had a Q/A with them. Whether it is about the services they offer or the timings, their team, work culture or their history, you can ask them all.
3. Agreement Terms: Be very clear on the terms of the agreement. What do they intend to offer and what happens if they fail to map the same. What terms do they lay if you end your arrangement before the project ends? Having an idea prior to the engagement helps avoid any sort of confusion that might weary you later.
4. Ask For Proof: Never fall prey to their sugar-coated words. If they state facts or figures, never hesitate to ask for proof. If they consider themselves to be compliant with regulatory norms, again ask for proof. A provider that can happily share all the certificates with you can be trusted, but not the other way round.
5. Seek Flexibility: Providers that are rigid in their offerings and even though, promise offering services according to your business, they end up sticking to their own norms are not reliable. It is extremely difficult to know whether or not such providers provide what they say. You can have a one to one conversation with them and as a precautionary measure, sign up for a trial period, to see if at all the services map your business needs.

Only after you are convinced about the service quality of the service provider should you move ahead with the collaboration. It is true that these providers are important for your business but not at the cost of your reputation. It takes years to build up a business from scratch and on top of this, loads of effort to build user trust. Losing either of it is not preferred and hence, you need to be very specific about your choices.

In case, you are looking for a reliable solution partner, Claptek would be of help. We practice what we preach. With 20+ years of experience, we take immense pride in symbolizing our success with our name.

Get in touch for detailed assistance.