Interviewing a fulfillment provider to find out if they are a good fit for your organization can be an intimidating prospect. After all, the person across the table from you knows a lot more about fulfillment than you do, and it can be hard to come up with good questions that will fill out your understanding of how your two organizations might work together.
As a provider of expert fulfillment services ourselves, we know what questions are likely to get right to the point and give you the best amount of information possible to help you make your decision. You might be looking for a more efficient way to get your products to your e-commerce customers, or you may be quickly getting overwhelmed by rapidly increasing B2B fulfillment needs. In any case, asking a potential fulfillment partner these three questions will give you a good start on understanding what your working relationship would look like.
“How do you integrate your systems with ours?”
Successful fulfillment through a third-party provider is heavily dependent on the two organizations’ technologies communicating seamlessly. Whatever software and methods your company is currently using to keep track of customer orders and other critical data, you need your fulfillment provider to be able to link to those systems securely and reliably. Ideally, that would also happen very quickly, so that there is minimal interruption to your customer service during the transition.
From our perspective at Spectra, this is so important that we have deliberately worked hard to ensure that no matter what customer management system our new clients bring to us–even if it’s outdated, disorganized, and clunky–we can integrate our receiving, inventory management, and shipping systems with it right away. Once we have reached the initial goal of getting everything up and running smoothly, we can help you take the next step by recommending upgrades to your CRM and assisting you in setting up a better system.
“Can you help with special handling requests?”
This is a very important question that will help you understand what the limits will be on how your inventory will be handled by the provider that you’re interviewing. New clients tend to assume that their new fulfillment partner will be willing and able to perform tasks such as labeling, assembly, returns processing, spot testing, inspections, and other specific requests. In reality, the average third-party logistics (3PL) provider does not have the resources to perform very many, if any, of these requests.
If your products are dependent on certain procedures taking place while they are stored in inventory, it is essential to establish beforehand that your fulfillment partner will be able to execute those procedures according to your instructions. Even a factor as simple as climate control should be raised if your products are sensitive to drastic temperature changes. It is more common than many people realize for a basic fulfillment facility to lack air conditioning and heating, meaning inventory is subjected to wide ranges of temperatures over the course of a year.
Related to this question is the need to put special requests into a contract. It is too easy for a fulfillment provider to “say yes to everything” during the interview phase, then try to figure out later whether they actually have the ability to follow through on those assurances. For clarity and peace of mind, your fulfillment partner should be willing to create a detailed contract that specifies all the standard operating procedures (SOPs) that they will follow when storing and shipping your products.
Spectra prioritizes visibility and integrity in this area, and our clients always know exactly how their inventory is being handled at our facility. We maintain complex SOPs with many of our clients, so they know that our team is managing their inventory the same way they would do it with an in-house fulfillment department.
“How long have you been doing fulfillment?”
This may sound like an “icebreaker” question, but it’s not! It’s important for you as a client to know what kind of real-world experience your fulfillment partner brings to your projects. A beautiful, organized, clean facility is important, but if the team managing that facility doesn’t have very much experience, your customer relationships could be in jeopardy.
There are many pitfalls in the world of fulfillment, and it takes experience in the field to spot and avoid them. As one prominent example, shipping companies charge extra fees when their drivers have to deliver to irregular locations or execute tasks that are outside what is specified in the contract. If a fulfillment provider isn’t aware of those stipulations and how they apply to a given shipment, the delivery may end up costing much more than anticipated.
A company like Spectra, which has more than 24 years of experience providing fulfillment, has the knowledge in-house to avoid surprise accessorial fees such as these, and also to prevent mistakes within our facility that could endanger your products. We’ve built our own quality assurance processes, which are very effective in maximizing the accuracy of our kitting and pick and pack fulfillment activities.
And when that once-in-a-decade incident occurs that no one expected, you know that your fulfillment provider is positioned to respond quickly and minimize the disruption to your business. From extreme weather events to supply chain issues to a global pandemic, the Spectra team has brought clients successfully through unexpected challenges and helped them continue giving their customers great service.
Ask Spectra Your Questions
At Spectra, we love when prospective clients have good questions to ask us. That’s because we have good answers! The broad range of different types of clients that we have served with excellent fulfillment over the years is a powerful testimony to our team’s versatility. Clients with highly unusual products or strict guidelines for the handling of their inventory find that Spectra is a great partner that they can trust. We’d love for you to become our next long-term client!
Explore our fulfillment and warehousing services to learn more about what we offer and how we can help your organization.
