A strong customer-vendor relationship is vital.

AS THE DEMAND to provide high quality, low cost, rapid health care services continues to rise, our decisions concerning the purchase of equipment, reagents, and disposables are increasingly important--not only to the financial operation of our departments but to our own personal job performance. As a result, a strong customer-vendor relationship is vital.

Laboratory managers and supervisors deal with vendors on a weekly, or sometimes daily, basis. I depend on vendors to provide me with honest, reliable product information, competitive pricing, and consistent, speedy service. Unfortunately, some of the vendors who visit my department fall short of these expectations.

* What kills a sale? A vendor can undermine a relationship with a customer before it even gets off the ground. Following are a few common culprits.

Dishonesty can destroy any relationship instantaneously and irrevocably. If I learn, for example, that a vendor has deliberately lied to me or misled me about his product, I will no longer give that vendor my time or business.

Circumventing proper channels to make a sale puts a serious strain on a customer-vendor relationship. When a vendor who has not made a sale with me goes over my head (to a CEO, COO, emergency room physician, or pathologist, for example) to pitch his product, that vendor is not welcome in my lab again.

Bad-mouthing the competition annoys me and wastes my time. As a discerning buyer of multimillion dollar instrumentation and services, I consider it completely unprofessional and unnecessary if the product is worth its salt.

Recently, a vendor who represents a company that markets point-of-care instrumentation took this type of amateurish behavior a step further. Trying to sell his company's equipment to our medical technologists, the vendor devoted over half of his presentation to making acid comments about the stupidity of nurses and how the instrument was so simple that even "they" could run it! He then smugly stated that when he presents the instrument to nurses, he changes his sales pitch. (I guess he refers to medical technologists as pin-headed territorialists.) When I told him in no uncertain terms that his comments were not appreciated and that his time had run out, he promptly called my boss and the CEO to express a few snide comments about me.

* Winning traits. While I've met my share of unprofessional, unethical vendors, I've also had the good fortune to meet a number of reputable ones. How have these salespeople gained my respect? By exhibiting the characteristics that follow.

Open, sincere communication is vital to developing a strong vendor-customer bond. When a vendor works hard to determine my needs as a manager, as well as the needs of my department (based on space and staffing) and the hospital and community (according to patient population), I am much more amenable to committing to that vendor. One salesperson, in particular, has been so open and honest with me from our very first encounter that I wrote a letter of commendation to her boss.

A vendor's willingness to prove his product strengthens a relationship between vendor and customer, too. Such salespeople furnish me with user lists of all purchasing customers (not just the happy ones) and allow me to make an objective appraisal of their product's performance. They encourage site visits to other facilities or bring their products into my lab for us to use free of charge for a few weeks. Remember that vendors who are proud of their products will be anxious to show them off.

Cost competitiveness ensures a short-term sales victory and provides the impetus for a long-term triumph. Vendors who are open to negotiating competitively on instruments, software, supplies, training, reagents, quality control, service agreements, or test services are marketers who value their customers and recognize the importance of building lasting relationships with them.

* Two-way street. While it is imperative that a vendor go the extra mile to cement a strong customer-vendor alliance, the customer must also be ethical, straightforward, and committed to the relationship. For both parties to prosper, it must be a two-way street.

Bonnie B. Hendrix is laboratory director, Northside Hospital, St. Petersburg, Fla., and adjunct professor, University of South Florida, Tampa.