Some waste management firms simply set their contracts up and forget about them. When haulers gradually push their prices up, as they almost always do, the company will just pass the costs straight onto the client. At National Waste Associates (NWA), we believe our customers deserve better. That’s why we have an entire department designated to control our clients’ cost, fight these price increases on your behalf and act like a vice to prevent costs from continually rising.

Introducing… NWA’s Vendor Services Department

At the start of every new contract, the Vendor Services Department works to get things moving on the right track. To do this, we refer to a constantly updated database of haulers for every area in the U.S. and Canada. We make a concerted effort to go out to market and find new haulers with competitive fees, and to update the geographic range that each hauler provides their services in.

This is important, because in some parts of the North America there may only be one waste hauler servicing the area. It’s normally one of the waste majors, and because they know they have a monopoly on services in that area, they can increase invoices without warning.

When a client opens a site in a new location, or wants a new material collected, we go out to market and find the hauler with the best price for that work. But we’re not just searching for the best prices, we’re also finding the most transparent and cost-consistent hauler; ones that won’t increase their prices after six months, or add other fees to the invoice that we didn’t agree to. Their price will end up being cheaper in the long run, even when compared to the waste majors who initially might be cheaper in price… and that’s what we want for our customers.

Fighting Back Against Price Rises

When our customers are under contract with us, our team members spend their days examining pricing discrepancies; instances where the invoice total that we’ve received from a hauler differs from the agreed rates.
Firstly, we fire the invoice back to the hauler and check that they didn’t make a ‘mistake’. Some pricing discrepancies can be swiftly dealt with in this way.

However, we’re also watching out for patterns of frequent or excessive increases. When we see these, our team will go back out to the marketplace and search for other haulers with more competitive fees or more consistent pricing. If we find a hauler that can offer the same service for less money, or will be more reliable in their pricing, then we’ll switch them out.

Cities with Franchise Waste Contracts

Some cities franchise out their waste management to particular companies. Because only those haulers can work within the city limits, we have limited choices for who can service your waste in these locations. The franchise contracts often go to the waste majors, and it’s these companies that often have the most hidden fees.

When these invoices go up, or new fees appear, then we don’t have the option to bid the contract out to someone else. Instead, we’ll take up the battle directly with the city.

The Vendor Services Department lodges a complaint with the city to persuade them to challenge the hauler on our behalf. If we can convince them that the price increases are unethical or have breached the terms of the contract, they can then use their superior weight against the hauler to reject it.

Cost-avoidance at all costs

Whether the pricing discrepancy is $500 or $5, our Vendor Services Department will jump to action to get that price down. Sometimes we can’t get the price rise all the way down to zero, but when this is the case, we’ll always negotiate to reduce it to a fairer sum.

NWA works as another arm of your business, continually fighting to make sure that your waste prices are fair and your costs are controlled. We believe that the price you signed up for is the price you should continue to pay, and we work tirelessly to make this happen for you.

This constant management of our customers’ costs is what sets NWA apart from our competitors who often operate more like facilitators.

With NWA, it’s all part of the service.