Maple Street, Inc., the leader in vendor management for credit unions and community banks, and a business partner of the California and Nevada Creidt Union Leagues, is taking client and vendor relationships to a new level with its Performance Addendum.  

 Traditionally, a vendor-client contract is transactional. It’s crystal clear about what the client has to pay and when, but is opaque about what the vendor provides. Vendors often say they want to be their client’s partner, but a one-sided transactional contract isn’t a partnership and often leads to dissatisfaction with vendor performance.

After years of observing vendors’ transactional approach to contracting fail, the company has adopted a different approach: building a relationship contract with its clients. Maple Street’s Performance Addendum is an agreement that defines a working relationship to continually work together to achieve the results the client seeks. That means more service, time, and resources on Maple Street’s part, but the result will be greater client satisfaction.

“The evaluation and selection stage, before we contract, are very important,” said Mike Crofts, president. “It’s here that Maple Street confirms the specific results the client wants from its vendor management program, resulting in goals that are specific, measurable, actionable, realistic and time-driven (SMART goals). They form the basis of the Performance Addendum with our clients. We commit to work with the client to achieve those goals, not just sell software and reports.”

As part of its commitment to achieve clients’ goals, the company will build a scorecard to measure results and facilitate discussion and understanding. Maple Street and its clients will regularly report on and review result achievement to make sure results are achieved, in a true alliance.

Josh Layne, Maple Street vice president of vendor management and compliance commented on the new program, “This bold step will result in further client engagement and enable us to work with our clients toward better results. Scorecarding ourselves and discussing results in an open dialogue with clients is just one example of our commitment to the success of this program.” To learn more about Maple Street, visit www.maplestreetinc.com.