How to Conclude Your Customer Contracts Quicker

As a supplier of products or services, concluding your customer contracts quickly can provide your business with significant benefits—for example, faster delivery and increased customer satisfaction. On the other hand, lengthy negotiations can drain your time and resources, whilst swift contract closure offers speedier revenue generation. There are various steps your business can take to conclude contracts more quickly. This article will explore how faster contract closures can benefit your business and the proactive steps you can take to achieve this. 

Why Is a Customer Contract Important?

When well-drafted, a written business contract is a written agreement that protects a business from risk and records the terms under which parties will do business. 

As a trading organisation, having a robust written contract to govern the sale of your products or services should be a top priority. This contract will help protect your business by covering protection around your specific products or services delivery and potential issues you might face. Without a legally binding agreement, you expose your business to high risks and possible problems, such as mismatched expectations around your offering. A clear written contract helps avoid these issues and provides a means for resolving disputes, instilling a sense of security and confidence in your business operations.

A business contract with your customers offers several protections:

• contracts can include clauses that minimise the chance of disputes, such as grace periods for fixing breaches and informal dispute resolution processes;
• contracts can ensure you meet mandatory legal requirements, such as providing mandatory information required under consumer laws and including data protection clauses; and 
• contracts can clarify obligations, allow you to enforce your rights (e.g., make claims for non-payment), and limit liability you could incur for unexpected problems. 

Why Is Concluding Contracts with Customers Quickly Important?

Concluding contracts quickly can help with efficiency, significantly impacting your business. It saves time and reduces costs by minimising the back-and-forth typically associated with lengthy negotiations. Faster contract closure means you can start on your customers’ projects sooner, paying you quicker. Additionally, it can improve customer satisfaction by demonstrating efficiency and reliability, allowing your customers to focus on their projects rather than getting bogged down in protracted negotiations. This efficiency boost can improve sales and help drive your business forward.

What Steps Can Your Business Take to Conclude Contracts Quicker?

Being prepared in advance can help your business conclude customer contracts more quickly.

Here are some proactive steps which your business can take to conclude contracts faster: 

Use Clear Terms and Conditions Documents

The contract creation process should be smooth and efficient to avoid delays. This can help close deals faster. Using clear terms and conditions in documents can be critical in speeding up contract closure, particularly for suppliers offering the same products or services to multiple customers.

Terms and conditions are standard contract terms suppliers can use to streamline contractual processes. Rather than spending time negotiating lengthy and bespoke contracts with customers, you can roll out a predefined set of legal terms for customers to sign. 

Using standard terms to clearly define your key terms, responsibilities, payment schedules, and delivery timelines can significantly reduce the need for lengthy negotiations. Additionally, incorporating standardised clauses for all customers, such as a termination clause, a dispute resolution clause, and a confidentiality clause, in your terms and conditions can streamline negotiations by setting clear expectations and avoiding protracted discussions over various issues and how things will work during your project. 

Your sales team can also learn about your standard terms and what they include to help quickly address customer queries. 

While some customers may push back and seek to negotiate your standard terms, having this document offers the chance to speed up your contractual process. You can also adopt processes to speed up the signing process, such as electronic signatures to execute contract documents. 

Your business should also note that specific complex contracts may require you to put in place a more bespoke agreement or heavily adapt your standard terms so they are fit for purpose. You should seek legal advice for clarification on the appropriate contract terms. 

Plan Your Negotiation Position in Advance 

You should take proactive steps to prepare for the contract negotiation process. Knowing your negotiation position early can transform how quickly you conclude contracts.

For instance, you can plan your approach with the help of an internal comprehensive negotiation guide that outlines your standard terms, acceptable variations, and negotiation strategies. This document can help you plan your negotiations, stay on track, and ensure consistency across your team when negotiating with customers. 

This document and strategy reduce the time spent on internal consultations and approvals, as everyone understands the company’s negotiation stance. By clearly understanding your non-negotiable terms and flexible points, you can negotiate more effectively and efficiently during the contractual negotiation process.

This internal negotiation guide can also help prepare for potential counterarguments and provide predefined responses, reducing the time spent deliberating during negotiations. Implementing such a guide can speed up the contract closure process and enhance your negotiation power, allowing you to secure favourable terms quickly and confidently.

Consider Legal Advice 

Engaging legal advisors for contract drafting and negotiation can significantly speed up your contract process. 

Involving your legal team early in negotiations can help identify potential issues before they become obstacles, providing strategic insights that facilitate smoother negotiations. 

You can ask lawyers to run negotiations on your behalf and liaise directly with a customer’s lawyers. This can help conclude contracts far more rapidly, where legal teams guide the negotiation process. This can be particularly useful when a customer heavily negotiates your standard terms or pushes for a bespoke or complex contract to govern their project. Early legal involvement also reduces the back-and-forth typically associated with contract revisions, expediting the entire process and leading to quicker conclusions. Legal guidance can make you feel more informed and confident in your contract negotiations. 

These are a few steps your business can consider to speed up your contract closure process. With this proactive approach, your business can save time and costs and quickly secure new customer business. 

Key Takeaways

Fast-tracking your contract processes will help enable quicker project starts and faster revenue streams for your business, allowing your team to focus on other business priorities besides contract negotiations. By engaging legal support, using clear terms and conditions documents, and knowing your negotiation position, you can significantly reduce the time it takes to conclude customer contracts. These strategies will save time, reduce costs, and can also help improve customer satisfaction by showing your business is efficient and contractually savvy. 

If you need guidance on your customer contracts and negotiation process, contact LegalVision’s experienced contract lawyers as part of our LegalVision membership. For a low monthly fee, you will have unlimited access to lawyers to answer your questions and draft and review your documents. Call us today on 0808 196 8584 or visit our membership page.