B2B Vendor Relationship Resilience During the Pandemic

Thanks for taking a few minutes to reflect on how this vendor relationship held up during the pandemic. Your honest experience helps us understand what worked, what didn't, and what should stay in place going forward. Your responses are completely confidential and anonymized. About 8 minutes.

Overall, how did your organization's relationship with this vendor change during the pandemic (2020-2022)?

• Significantly improved
• Somewhat improved
• Stayed about the same
• Somewhat worsened
• Significantly worsened

During pandemic-related disruptions, how much do you agree with each of the following statements about this vendor?

How did this vendor's overall performance during pandemic disruptions compare to your expectations?

Which of these pandemic-era changes with this vendor has your organization kept in place?

• Remote or virtual onboarding and sales calls
• Digital ordering or invoicing tools
• Contactless or flexible delivery options
• Self-service support portals

When deciding whether to continue working with this vendor through pandemic disruptions, which factors mattered most and which mattered least?

• Price stability during shortages
• Delivery speed and reliability
• Proactive communication about disruptions
• Ease of digital or online ordering
• Dedicated account support
• Flexible payment or contract terms
• Consistent product or service quality
• Willingness to adjust order volumes on short notice

Thinking about your decision to keep working with this vendor, distribute 100 points across the factors below based on how much weight each one carried.

• Cost or pricing
• Reliability of supply
• Communication quality
• Flexibility of terms
• Digital or self-service capabilities
• Personal relationship with rep

Reconstruct the single most memorable moment in this vendor relationship during the pandemic — anchor on the overall relationship-change rating the respondent gave earlier and ask them to walk through a specific incident (a delay, a shortage, a communication failure or a standout save) rather than a general impression. If they said the relationship worsened, probe exactly what happened and whether it was ever repaired; if it improved, probe what the vendor did differently and whether that behavior has continued since. Push for concrete details: dates, what was promised, what was delivered.

Based on your experience during the pandemic, how likely are you to recommend this vendor to another business facing similar disruptions?

What is the approximate size of your organization?

• 1-10 employees
• 11-50 employees
• 51-200 employees
• 201-1,000 employees
• 1,000+ employees
• Prefer not to say

Which best describes your role in decisions about this vendor?

• Procurement or purchasing
• Operations
• Finance
• Executive or ownership
• Other
• Prefer not to say

Which industry best describes your organization?

• Manufacturing
• Retail or e-commerce
• Healthcare
• Professional or financial services
• Construction
• Technology
• Prefer not to say

That's everything — thank you for sharing this. Your responses will be combined with others to help us understand which vendor behaviors built trust under pressure and which changes are worth keeping for good.