What's the longest supplier self survey you've had to fill out?

Bev D

Heretical Statistician
Staff member
Super Moderator
#11
I recall having a 28-pager in front of me ...It was that one that made me decide to compile a list of answers to the most frequent-appearing items and supply it as a response to questionnaires. There was some protest; some customers insisted on having their questionnaire completed despite the fact that all of their questions were answered in my canned response. We dealt with those on a case-by-case basis, but having the canned responses eliminated 95% of the time devoted to completing questionnaires.

Insofar as divulging information that you'd rather not divulge, just say so. Most who ask those questions are just fishing and won't be put off by your being reluctant to answer.
YES! that is what I did too and it worked...not the ideal solution but it significantly reduced the non value add time. THEN I turned around and eliminated our supplier surveys!
 
Elsmar Forum Sponsor
#13
In relation to this topic, what right does a customer have to expect me to answer things like our top three customers and total sales?
They can ask, but I reserve the right not to answer. I will not answer such questions. In fact, I'm not even allowed to reveal information about other customers.

And to make matters worse, in my experience, a significant percentage of these surveys are never scrutinized carefully enough.
Or even scrutinized at all. They just sit in various filing cabinets, slowly turning to dust...

As for the question in the thread title, I think Mustang may be the holder of the all time record. See this old thread: Customer just sent me a 118 page Supplier Self Survey! (We all agreed that that was just plain silly).

I also suggest a look in Supplier Evaluation and Approval forms - Discussion and Evaluation Examples There are many more of them scattered across the Cove.

/Claes
 

SteelMaiden

Super Moderator
Super Moderator
#14
twenty some pages. what rubbish!:mad:

I don't really name names....I might give them a breakdown in percentages as to what industries we supply to, they can always contact us for more info (like they really use this stuff! lol) As for the money part, it is pretty much public info so I put whatever my cfo wants.

This is one of those things that I've wondered what would happen if I answered in gibberish....but alas, the customer is always right.

I have called customers whom I have felt sent surveys that were way to long and asked them why they felt they needed this much information (in a nice way, of course).
 

Tim Folkerts

Super Moderator
#18
I know it would never fly, but I would be tempted to send a note back with the survey saying...

We are happy to send you the information on this survey. We know that you will diligently analyze the responses. When you will send us the results of your analysis, we will use them to improve our interaction with your company.

In order to keep from over-burdening your analysts, we will help you by not returning any additional surveys until you have had time to analyze and report to us the results of this survey.



:lol: :lol: :lol:
 

Wes Bucey

Quite Involved in Discussions
#19
My primary experience with supplier surveys requested by customers was with automotive and aerospace customers.

My company was self-declared compliant to an ISO or QS Standard, so we were not able to slide by ticking off our registration number and registrar. In defense, I did as Jim Wynne did and created a super slick self assessment survey based on the QS9000 Standard.

Each page was divided into 3 columns. Column 1 was the text of the Standard; column 2 had a detailed explanation of how we met the Standard; column 3 was blank. We invited ALL customers and prospects to drop by anytime (we were open 24/7), armed with the copy of the survey and invited them to compare any or all of the clauses with our actual operation for themselves and fill n the blanks with their own observations.

The darn thing worked very well - never had a single prospect or customer take us up on the challenge. After the first five uses of the Self Assessment Survey (SAS) in response to requests, we got such complimentary comments, we decided to have the thing printed up and bound to use as a sales tool. Once we started using it in advance, we never received another request for a SAS from any customer or prospect.

The problem of customers asking for confidential financial or sales information can be a very touchy subject. We were not a publicly traded corporation and considered information about our customers as trade secret (both our own secret and the secrets of our customers.) Our solution was to "inoculate" customers and prospects to prevent them asking the question. I no longer remember the exact language, but the gist of it was,
"We are a privately held corporation and do not disclose our financial information to any entity which has not signed a confidentiality agreement binding all principals, partners, employees, servants, and agents. We recognize some customers ask such questions out of concern whether the supplier has sufficient financial capacity to service projected orders. If your annual order will exceed one million dollars, we will supply a performance bond guaranteeing our performance if you will provide a similar bond guaranteeing your performance in purchasing.

"Some customers ask about who and how much business we do with other companies. We consider such information a trade secret and do not disclose such data. Please do not ask."

This "immunization shot" was part of the cover letter accompanying the SAS we sent.
 
#20
"Some customers ask about who and how much business we do with other companies. We consider such information a trade secret and do not disclose such data. Please do not ask."
Good one, Wes.

In fact, we have a written procedure about how to handle business secrets. In short it states: "Information about a customer concerns only the customer and ourselves". It came up in this discussion about ISO 9001:2000, Clause 7.5.4 : Defining Customer Property - Specifications, templates, patterns from customers

/Claes
 
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