Responsiveness Decline

Stage 2 of vendor relationship degradation, in which the vendor’s account management engagement decreases measurably. Response times increase, access to decision-makers becomes harder, and service shifts from proactive to reactive.

Responsiveness decline signals that the vendor has deprioritized the account, typically because the customer’s switching costs have grown to a level where the vendor perceives the relationship as secure regardless of service quality.

The diagnostic question at this stage is whether the vendor is being unresponsive because they are genuinely overloaded or because they have stopped competing for the relationship.