Abstract
This strategy session about the vendor/library working relationship was given by three panel members with a variety of experiences and offering viewpoints of both vendors and librarians. The needs and goals of each partner in this working relationship were discussed so that both librarians and vendors can appreciate the others' needs and goals, as well as be aware of unrealistic demands or damaging behaviors of their own. Keeping these in mind, a mutually beneficial and productive business relationship can be developed in which vendors and libraries partner to provide the best services to the library user.
INTRODUCTION
This session was given by a team of presenters who are involved in vendor/library relationships. Bob Persing is a librarian at the University of Pennsylvania who has worked with vendors for many years. Chris Beckett, currently with the vendor Atypon, has worked with librarians for many years. And Christine Stamison, currently with Swets, worked as a librarian prior to her work as a vendor representative and has experiences and insights from both.
The panel thus included professionals with a variety of experiences gained in their work as vendors or library clients. Their discussion about the various rewards and pitfalls of the vendor/library relationship was enlightening, collegial, and at times quite funny. Areas covered by the panel included how libraries and vendors can cultivate mutually beneficial and productive working relationships, which issues each side must deal with (and which the “other side” needs to be aware of), and areas to avoid which can poison a professional working relationship.
PART 1: THE REAL WORLD FOR A SUBSCRIPTION VENDOR
Christine Stamison was the first to present. She mentioned that vendors are for-profit companies and making that profit matters to them. These are tough economic times. When libraries must cancel and scale back subscriptions for budgetary reasons, the vendors feel it too. Also, the advent of new electronic formats presents an additional challenge. In part, the demise of many smaller vendors (and some not-so-small vendors) can be tied to their inability to adapt to the electronic world.
Christine then expounded on the challenges faced by the vendor representative. He or she has a defined territory that has a given number of dollars of business and of gross profit. The representative must meet these quotas through selling a mixture of traditional subscriptions and electronic products. He or she must work to retain existing customers and make up any loss in revenue due to budgetary cancellations. Thus, there is a need to be aggressive with every action leading eventually to a buying decision. A representative must understand the library market—an additional challenge as many vendor representatives come from outside the library field. There is much travel involved, and at present vendors are finding it quite difficult to recruit serials librarians to be representatives.
How to Tell a Bad Vendor Representative from a Good One
In light of this, what are some signs of a bad vendor rep? They are liable to “show up and throw up”—in other words they arrive and tell you what you should buy from them without listening to the library's needs and desires, much less what the library can afford. Hard sell tactics are another sign of a bad vendor representative.
On the other hand, a good rep has done their homework on the account ahead of time and will ask many questions to determine their client's needs. They listen. They will do a “reference interview.” Most sales happen when a rep, without being pushy, uncovers a library's need in such an interview. A good rep will try to build a trusting relationship with their clients and promote only those services that a prospect or client actually needs. And they will walk away graciously if no needs are uncovered. At the end of the day, people will buy from whom they get results. A good rep will ensure that their client is well served and does not serve merely as a source from which to extract money.
Working with Vendors in RFP/RFI Situations
Christine then discussed the challenges vendors and libraries face in working through an RFP (Request For Proposal) or RFI (Request For Information). Librarians are well aware of the challenges they face in crafting an RFP. To get the best possible results, libraries need to make sure everything they need is all spelled out and take time to do this. Libraries should also give vendors access to decision makers either before the process begins or during the process. Without this communication, vendors and their reps are just guessing at what the library is asking for in its RFP, which, in the end, may not give the library a solution for its needs. It is fine to use a template, either from someone else, or from an earlier RFP of one's own. However, make sure the template is up-to-date, the needs of the current RFP are accurately covered, and irrelevant information is not included.
From the vendors' point of view, there are several considerations to make in deciding whether to respond to an RFP. First, they need to decide whether they are a good candidate to win the proposal. Things appearing as red flags to the vendor (thus making it less likely that they will submit a proposal) include:
| • | No access to decision makers | ||||
| • | Unsolicited RFPs | ||||
| • | Short turnaround times | ||||
| • | RFPs that appear to be “column fodder”—the library is just looking for a certain number of responses rather than truly evaluating each response | ||||
Why would a vendor not respond to an RFP? The process is labor intensive and costs involved in responding to an RFP are high. A vendor can expect to spend $5,000 to $10,000 to answer a large RFP or RFI.
Vendors and Librarians: A Two Way Street
Vendor representatives really do appreciate honest feedback and the give and take of a professional business relationship. If there is a problem or issue, they want to know about it so it can be resolved. A rep will do as much as possible to keep the business. Vendors also need beta testers and other partners in launching new services and welcome their clients' participation—volunteer if your library really wants to give input. In short, vendors want to work with libraries in the most efficient manner and appreciate it when their customers communicate their issues and problems.
PART 2: PEOPLE WHO WANT SOMETHING FROM YOU
Bob Persing presented second and spoke of his experiences as a librarian working with various vendors. His first experience was actually when he was in library school during a course on technical services. His class took a field trip to a vendor (which is now out of business). He enjoyed seeing how a vendor operation works, but what stuck with him was a comment his professor made, “Never forget, these are people who want something from you.” Bob found it interesting and a little disturbing that many librarians' viewpoints on vendor relations defaulted to that of an adversary rather than a potential partner.
Vendor Relations are Based on Interpersonal Relationships
Human dynamics are important. Librarianship is a collegial profession unlike many other fields, such as insurance or law, which can be cut-throat. Thus, in our field vendor representatives and librarians are also more like partners. Vendors really do want to help their customers. However, keep in mind that this is a business relationship and not a friendship. Librarians must realize that the vendor needs to make money or else they will go out of business. However, nobody really makes a lot of money selling services to libraries; type A personalities do not thrive in this environment.
However, from time to time, things do go awry in professional matters. When things go wrong, do not allow pushiness to interfere. Sometimes vendor reps must carry “dirty water” but they may act differently when under different circumstances or with another product/service. One case in particular for Bob involved a vendor that was experiencing some difficulties. That representative became more aggressive in marketing the company's services, and the business relationship soured. A few months later, when dealing with another company, Bob found that the same aggressive rep had moved on and was representing the other company. Bob had to decide whether to proceed with this business relationship even though the previous dealings with the person had soured. In the end, Bob did meet with the rep and things went well. It turned out the previous company had been leaning on the representative. With the new company, this rep was not pushy and aggressive. Thus, it is best to judge by performance and not personalities.
What Librarians Can Do and Avoid to Build a Good Working Relationship
Difficulties can also arise from the library side of the vendor relationship. For example, some library staff tend to look at a vendor as a “cash cow” or “sugar daddy.” This may be especially true at holiday times when vendors may be judged by the cards or candy they send (or do not send), or when they visit and staff may look forward to being taken out to lunch. Although these are nice gestures, they are really not to be expected and are extraneous to the real matter of cost and quality of services provided.
Sometimes library staff seem to expect vendors to be psychic and understand needs and frustrations that actually have not been communicated. This is unfair and not useful. Sometimes librarians can be too timid in asking things of a vendor. This is also not useful as service cannot improve without constructive feedback. Conversely, uncontrolled complaining can damage a working relationship when done “behind the vendor's back,” whether the complaints remain in-house or become known in the larger library community.
PART 3: WE ARE ALL IN THIS TOGETHER OR ARE WE?
Chris Beckett then presented on the vendor's side of the library/vendor relationship. In the days before the advent of electronic resources, librarians and vendors could say that “we are all in this together and if we just sit down together and talk this through, we'll all be fine.” However, when electronic resources came along, this really was not the case anymore. The environment in which subscription agents work is now much harsher. Their revenue stream has been cut significantly as publishers' discounts have dropped from about 13 percent on average in the early 1990s to today's 5 percent. Also in the 1990s, there was a range of discounting so that the deeper discounts offered by some publishers were effectually subsidizing the services offered by subscription agents for publishers who offered lower or no discounts. Electronic resources allowed larger potential margins and tempted some publishers to market directly to libraries, thus cutting out the subscription vendor.
One wrinkle in the vendor/library relationship is the separation of the user (or end-user) from the purchaser; libraries buy the services and resources they need to serve their users. Keeping this in mind, vendors and publishers should be viewed as partners with libraries enabling them to provide the best user services. The most successful vendors do partner with libraries which have the knowledge and expertise of what the users' wants and needs actually are. Publishers can achieve this if libraries let them know clearly what they want. Organizations such as NASIG (or its British counterpart, UKSG) can play an important role in library/vendor relations and cooperation. We should develop this relationship because we have really good stuff to offer each other. For example, the link resolver report from UKSG was a product of libraries and vendors cooperating.
Library Systems: The Vendor's View
An important area of vendor and library cooperation is with integrated library systems. Customers will ask for “wacky stuff;” many librarians seem to think the ILS is a magic box that can be commanded to do whatever we wish. However, the costs of building and engineering are heavy, and systems designers must be careful not to be too ornate or too specialized. After all, the reason commercial ILSs took over from the myriad of homegrown systems over the years is precisely due to the heavy costs of engineering and maintaining specially customized systems. From the vendor's perspective, enhancements can be a headache; “code spaghetti” will kill you and your customers.
Vendors: Receiving Feedback from Libraries
The market for library vendors is a relationship market, or a “people marketplace.” As such, care needs to be given for interpersonal relationships. They need to be developed and can easily be damaged. For example, discussion lists are a wonderful way to network and communicate information that can solve problems. It is also an easy venue in which to complain. For the sake of legal, professional, and career reasons, one needs to be careful of what one says on listervs and how it is said.
An especially valuable way for vendors to gain the insights of librarians is to employ them. Librarians working for vendors bring their experience and viewpoints, which are extremely valuable. Vendors can also participate in library organizations and networks, attend conferences, present papers, and contribute to library blogs and listservs.
CONCLUSION
In working for a vendor, several things are important. A vendor rep should be up-to-date on current technology—they need a good grasp of what is out there. The rep should establish a clear domain expertise. They need to be flexible and be prepared to travel and/or relocate for the job.
The panel also fielded several audience questions at the conclusion of their presentation. A common theme dealt with how libraries and librarians can improve how they relate to their vendors. Advice from the panel included:
| • | Do not be afraid to ask for something, but be sure of what you are asking for and for what you are going to use it. | ||||
| • | If you have a problem directly with a vendor, check with the vendor first. The most innocent e-mail or listerv comment can open up a can of worms. | ||||
| • | Be aware of what you are asking for in that it may cost a lot or be prohibitively difficult to develop. | ||||
One notable comment came from Chris Beckett on how vendors can improve communication with their client libraries. Vendors should provide a list of “escalation” names and contacts to their customers, so that as problems and issues become more complex or pressing, the clients will know whom to contact in succession. Use of such an “escalation list” can reduce the occurrence of complaints vented on listservs and prevent damages from miscommunication and fallout from “listserv complaining.”
CONTRIBUTOR NOTES
Christine Stamison is Senior Customer Relations Manager at Swets Information Services.
Bob Persing is the Head of Serials at the University of Pennsylvania.
Chris Beckett is Vice President of Sales and Marketing for Atypon Systems, Inc.
Chris Brady is a Catalog and Government Documents Librarian at Baylor Law Library.