Is Your Current Waste Service Provider Doing Enough to Retain Your Business?

By Carmine Esposito, National Waste Associates

Procuring vendors is a high-stakes responsibility, especially when it comes to complex contracts like energy and waste, where supplier costs may vary over the contract term. Supplying acutely specialized services that are flexible enough to contain a tailored approach is ideal for successful waste management contracts. The actual test, however, is in the contract execution. Waste hauler contracts are often padded with problematic items that lean in the hauler’s favor. Things like:

Ancillary fees like Environmental fees, Regulatory fees, Compliance fees, Fuel Surcharges, etc.
Waste service issues without recourse
Hidden fees and hauler price hikes for just about any reason

Addressing these contract terms can often cut costs by at least 20-40% or more of your entire year’s billing. Haulers often profit from the strategic price increases that happen at least 1-4 times a year. From the beginning of the multi-year contract to the end, you can sometimes see as much as a 50-100% price hike when you sit down and do the math. But it’s not just the fees that you should consider when scrutinizing your auto-renew waste contract.

B2B suppliers, like waste management services, must address a spectrum of customer pain points in a knowledgeable yet flexible manner to get the best outcome for the client. In the contract execution, clients can evaluate if the vendor is looking out for their own best interest that often is seen in their option to charge extra fees and no commitment to avoid unnecessary hauls and landfilling. Ask yourself, is my waste management vendor keeping my company’s best interest at the forefront, often seen with service centric contracts? Do they provide a dedicated and experienced account manager? Are they collecting data, offering reporting, suggesting constant improvements, recommending landfill diversion and improving ESG efforts?

When choosing a vendor, Harvard Business Review identified 40 fundamental elements of value that fall in these five categories:

table stakes
functionality
ease of doing business
individual
inspirational

The B2B Elements of Value – https://hbr.org/2018/03/the-b2b-elements-of-value

When making vendor selections or replacements, these five categories, if balanced correctly, will deliver a reliable long-term vendor worthy of auto-renewed contracts. For auto-renew contracts with companies that perform, this feature is highly convenient and saves on time and effort. Auto-renew contracts with a passive company like most haulers, continues the path of doing your organization a disservice by allowing for minimum service or at best mediocrity. More often than not, low performing haulers take full advantage of the client not looking at the details of a contract, not looking for improvements on waste strategies, and generally taking a relaxed approach to waste management.

If you’re ready to address your waste management contract before you’re locked in again, take this self-assessment to see if it’s worth reconsidering your current vendor.

If you’re ready to talk trash now, reach out to one of our experts!
Call us at 1-888-692-5005 x6 or
email us at sales@nationalwaste.com

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