At Broughton Pharma, we think it’s always worthwhile to show your work. Once we start putting all these ideas into practice, it becomes much easier to understand how the pieces fit and work towards the same, coherent goal.

This time I wanted to show our work by doing a bit more to describe our purchasing process and how we communicate with our buyers. My goal is to show that we can fit into whatever time a buyer has available. And we think that’s the minimum — after all, what good is a secondary supplier who isn’t there when you need them most, usually when time is precious?

Our buyers have a handful of options when they need to request something from us. All of our reps are available by phone, both an office line and their cellphones, so a phone call is always on the table. Many of our buyers prefer texting though, so we’re available for that as well.

If their time is a bit more constrained, a buyer can submit a request form to their rep with an NDC, a quantity, and a receive-by date. With that information our reps can get to work putting together everything while our buyer focuses on what’s right in front of them.

On our end, there’s a certain level of comfort that buyers have with the phone call and conversation. So often a purchase in our industry has twists and turns: sometimes the initial NDC isn’t a perfect fit and a buyer comes back with an alternate option, or we work through hurdles of shipping. At the end getting from the initial question to product in hand can take time to do correctly.

But when time is in short supply we still want to be there for our buyers. The contact form or a text is usually the best way to do this: buyers can hand us off an NDC and a quantity and then go on about their day, sure in the knowledge that we’re doing our very best to fill that need. We reach back on their time through email or a text, and we’re able to go from there as fast as our buyer needs.

We want to preserve that level of customer service and discussion — it’s what makes Broughton Pharma, Broughton — while still being able to meet our buyers’ needs in whatever fashion that’s most convenient for them. And multiple options for contact are the best way to do that.