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Charter School Case Study

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4 Traits of Effective Charter School Vendors

One thing you may be surprised to learn about starting a charter school is that it’s a lot like starting a business. You’ve got to put out a quality product (your teaching style), you need to attract customers (your students), and you want to attract the best talent (your teachers). One of the most challenging aspects of the process is the hiring and management of suppliers.

Your school will need more suppliers than you think. There’s the food for the school lunches, materials for the classroom, and furniture for the building. Some of these expenses, like the food, are recurring while others like furniture are one-time expenses.

But like any business owner would do, it’s vital that you form …show more content…

These initial conversations with vendors provide you with a great opportunity to receive more information about their prices, their products, and potential discounts for large customers. Go with your gut – if a potential supplier doesn’t put in enough effort to win your business at the outset, there’s no chance that supplier is going to become easier to work with after they have your buy-in.

3. Demonstrates Quality Customer Service

You don’t have to wait until you hire a company to gauge the quality of its customer service. In fact, you can tell a lot about a supplier based on how they treat a customer before they are a customer. Do they send you a quote on time? Do they follow up with answers to your questions? Is their team happy to take your calls?

When you’re choosing a supplier, you’re not just choosing a particular product, but the people who push that product as well. Issues or late shipments are inevitable, but when those things happen, you want to feel confident that you’re working with professionals that will solve things quickly.

4. Reliability and Stability

Much like customer service, reliability and stability sound like traits you can only see once you start working with a supplier, but that’s not the case.

You can measure reliability by reading reviews or speaking with current or previous customers. If reviews or personal

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