21 Questions to Ask Before You Renew

Service: Lab Equipment Services

Category: Lab Equipment Services

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Evaluate Your Lab Equipment Support Provider, Before Another Year of Downtime and Delays

Before you sign another service agreement, ask some hard questions.

Is your vendor helping extend equipment life, or just repairing what breaks?

Is your documentation airtight, or barely enough to pass?

Is your lab equipment support proactive, or reactive?

This scorecard gives you a simple, structured way to assess whether your current provider is meeting your long-term lab equipment needs, versus providing short-term break/fix support. Use the result in your next review meeting, procurement conversation, or internal audit.

Because the right vendor won’t just respond to issues. They’ll help prevent them.

SCORING GUIDE

For each “YES”, earn 1 point

18-21: You’ve got a true partner
14-17: There’s room to improve
<14: It’s probably time for a new conversation

Responsiveness and Coverage	YES	NO
1. Do you know your average technician response time for critical service calls?	◻	◻
2. Is support available for all major equipment types, or just select brands/models?	◻	◻
3. Does your current vendor offer mobile, on-site repair service in your region?	◻	◻
4. Are preventive maintenance and emergency repair handled by the same team?	◻	◻
5. If a part is delayed, can your current vendor offer a workaround to keep operations running?	◻	◻

Technician Expertise and Safety	YES	NO
6. Are your service providers certified in lab-specific safety protocols (e.g., DOT, IATA, RCRA)?	◻	◻
7. Do their technicians understand GMP/GLP environments and requirements?	◻	◻
8. Has your lab ever had to train a technician on basic lab etiquette or compliance?	◻	◻
9. Are the same technicians assigned to your lab consistently, or does each service visit feel like a new vendor?	◻	◻
10. Can the technicians explain why a fix was made, in addition to exactly what was done?	◻	◻

Documentation And Data	YES	NO
11. Can you access unified service records for all equipment types in one place?	◻	◻
12. Are calibration and validation certificates automatically provided?	◻	◻
13. Is service history linked to specific asset tags or locations?	◻	◻