Customer care tops distributor agenda

Quality service: GfK research has revealed that customer care is a key factor to resellers

The recession drove many resellers to switch distributors, but price became less significant as resellers foc­used on customer care and breadth of portfolio, according to research.

The recently released GfK Channel Survey revealed 44 per cent of small VARs looked to change the distributors they worked with last year, up from 34 per cent in 2007.

For medium-size resellers, the amount rose from 40 to 50 per cent.

In 2007, price was cited as a factor in 57 per cent of decisions to switch, while customer care influenced just 39 per cent of resellers. In 2009 customer care topped the bill, prompting more than half of all decisions to switch allegiance, while price was the motivation in only 46 per cent of cases.

Carl West, business unit director for GfK Retail and Tech­nology said: “There was a swing towards a lack of loyalty, but, interestingly at a time of recession, price was not one of the top factors. It is about being able to trust a distributor and its ability to turn stock quickly.”

For the UK’s largest re­sellers, the picture looked a great deal different. In 2007, the big boys were by far the most willing to change partners, with three-quarters claiming to have done so. Last year, just a third of larg­er VARs looked to switch distribution allegiances.

Supply ability and speed remained resellers’ top demands of their distributors in 2009, being cited as important or very important by 98 and 84 per cent of respondents respectively. These percentages are more or less flat on 2007 levels.

Product assortment and the ability to order online have both become much more important to VARs over the past few years, according to GfK. In 2007, 71 per cent of resellers considered assortment an important factor in choosing a distribution partner. By 2009, this figure had swelled to 82 per cent. A distributor’s website and online ordering capability is now deemed important by 79 per cent of resellers, up from 70 per cent in 2007.

Eddie Pacey, director of credit at distributor Bell Micro, said larger VARs could always call on long-established relationships, while smaller players invariably shopped around.

He championed the importance of customer care and said that for distributors, there is more to life than simple volume.

“The small to medium-sized guys are generally looking for value-add – customer service, credit and account management,” he said.

“Dis­tri­butors are now willing to look at volume business and determine whether they make any money on it.”