This document provides a checklist of questions for vetting call center software providers. It covers key areas to evaluate such as uptime, scalability, redundancy, service level agreements, pricing, data security, support, implementation, APIs, integrations, operations, and compliance. For each area, 3-4 example questions are given to assess the provider's capabilities and policies in that area. The conclusion emphasizes that support quality should not be underestimated and the best providers revolutionize their industry by prioritizing customer needs.
GUIDE TO ERP IMPLEMENTATION FOR AGENCIES- For every organization, there comes a time when it outgrows
the capacities of its homegrown systems. Implementation
of ERP becomes essential for the functioning of such companies.
Roundtable: Best Practices - Quality Assurance & AnalyticsSheri Greenhaus
Top 5 quality assurance and optimization and best practices roundtable discussion with VPI, Genesys, inContact and CallFInder. Discussing virtual call agents, speech and data analytics, quality assurance, workforce management, performance management and more.
Visit CRMXchange.com and join the premiere CRM community.
Talk given by Cate de Heer, Staff Technical Writer, and Liane Yee, Lead Member of Technical Staff at Salesforce, at Content Management Strategies/DITA North America Conference, in April 2016
DITA has standards for titles. DITA has standards for shortdescs. They tend to be siloed from each other and generic in their prescriptions for usage. Over a two-year period, the writing team at Salesforce has evolved the existing standards into our own set of title and shortdesc guidelines for a specialized content type—release notes for each triannual release of the Salesforce SaaS product. These release notes give customers advance notice and detailed information about upcoming product enhancements so that they can prepare themselves and their users.
Our release notes have different requirements from most DITA content because of the release notes’ purpose—to focus on each release and not on Salesforce functionality overall. They’re time sensitive—What’s new this release? And they have the important job of conveying the business value of each new feature—Why should I care about feature X? They are also voluminous. Customers rightfully complained about having to read through all 300-plus pages to try to assess which new features they wanted or needed to know about.
In response, a small team of writers set out to revamp the release notes to make them more effective at doing their job. We worked extensively with all the writers to help them adopt DITA best practices for using topic types and the title and shortdesc elements. And we coached them in shifting their emphasis from documenting a feature to conveying the business case for it. Our work facilitated a separate effort to make the release notes available in a searchable, filterable HTML format—a huge plus for customers.
The combination of title and shortdesc proved to be the linchpin we needed to make it really easy for customers to find the information they cared about. We started with a 12-page draft of title and shortdesc writing guidelines for both online help topics and release notes. As we worked with writers over the months, we distilled our insights into a one-page handout that is now pinned to the corkboard above every writer’s desk. Getting the guidelines adopted by a hundred writers—with varying levels of familiarity with DITA—is an ongoing challenge.
Talk given by Marat Vyshegorodtsev and Sergey Gorbaty. Enterprise Security team at Salesforce, in January 2017.
Discusses a set of open source tools that analyze the Apex/VisualForce code and advise on its quality.
Observe point frequently asks questionsObservePoint
Audits are prescriptive, Simulations are protective. Audits can tell you about tagging issues that need to be fixed, and simulations can alert you when new tagging problems appear.
GUIDE TO ERP IMPLEMENTATION FOR AGENCIES- For every organization, there comes a time when it outgrows
the capacities of its homegrown systems. Implementation
of ERP becomes essential for the functioning of such companies.
Roundtable: Best Practices - Quality Assurance & AnalyticsSheri Greenhaus
Top 5 quality assurance and optimization and best practices roundtable discussion with VPI, Genesys, inContact and CallFInder. Discussing virtual call agents, speech and data analytics, quality assurance, workforce management, performance management and more.
Visit CRMXchange.com and join the premiere CRM community.
Talk given by Cate de Heer, Staff Technical Writer, and Liane Yee, Lead Member of Technical Staff at Salesforce, at Content Management Strategies/DITA North America Conference, in April 2016
DITA has standards for titles. DITA has standards for shortdescs. They tend to be siloed from each other and generic in their prescriptions for usage. Over a two-year period, the writing team at Salesforce has evolved the existing standards into our own set of title and shortdesc guidelines for a specialized content type—release notes for each triannual release of the Salesforce SaaS product. These release notes give customers advance notice and detailed information about upcoming product enhancements so that they can prepare themselves and their users.
Our release notes have different requirements from most DITA content because of the release notes’ purpose—to focus on each release and not on Salesforce functionality overall. They’re time sensitive—What’s new this release? And they have the important job of conveying the business value of each new feature—Why should I care about feature X? They are also voluminous. Customers rightfully complained about having to read through all 300-plus pages to try to assess which new features they wanted or needed to know about.
In response, a small team of writers set out to revamp the release notes to make them more effective at doing their job. We worked extensively with all the writers to help them adopt DITA best practices for using topic types and the title and shortdesc elements. And we coached them in shifting their emphasis from documenting a feature to conveying the business case for it. Our work facilitated a separate effort to make the release notes available in a searchable, filterable HTML format—a huge plus for customers.
The combination of title and shortdesc proved to be the linchpin we needed to make it really easy for customers to find the information they cared about. We started with a 12-page draft of title and shortdesc writing guidelines for both online help topics and release notes. As we worked with writers over the months, we distilled our insights into a one-page handout that is now pinned to the corkboard above every writer’s desk. Getting the guidelines adopted by a hundred writers—with varying levels of familiarity with DITA—is an ongoing challenge.
Talk given by Marat Vyshegorodtsev and Sergey Gorbaty. Enterprise Security team at Salesforce, in January 2017.
Discusses a set of open source tools that analyze the Apex/VisualForce code and advise on its quality.
Observe point frequently asks questionsObservePoint
Audits are prescriptive, Simulations are protective. Audits can tell you about tagging issues that need to be fixed, and simulations can alert you when new tagging problems appear.
The Leaders Guide to Getting Started with Automated TestingJames Briers
Conventional testing is yesterday’s news, is required but needs the same overhaul that has happened in development. It needs to be a slicker operation that really identifies the risk associated with release and protects the business from serious system failure. The only way to achieve this is to remove the humans, they are prone to error, take a long time, cost a lot of money and don’t always do what they are told.
Automation needs to be adopted as a total process, not a bit part player. Historically automation has focussed on the User Interface, which can be a start, but is often woefully lacking. Implementing an Automation Eco-System, sees automation drive through to the interface or service layer, enabling far higher reuse of automated scripts, encompasses the environment and the test data within it’s strategy, providing a robust, repeatable and reusable asset.
Don’t just automate the obvious. Automation is not a black box testing technique. Rather it is mirroring the development and building an exercise schedule for the code. Take your testing to the next level and realise the real benefits of a modern Automation Eco-system.
Join our webinar to learn best practices for maximizing user experience and productivity in Service Cloud. Learn from our Salesforce PM and UX service leads on how you as an #AwesomeAdmin can create engaging experiences for your agents and help them solve cases faster with pre-built apps and automation.
Talk given by Ravi Kishore Valeti, Software Engineering LMTS at Salesforce, at GIDS in April 2016
Most Enterprises have been thinking of (and some of them are already) running BDaaS and performing analytics over their Big Data to help make key business decisions. This talk is about "what it takes to operationalize BDaaS, challenges in successfully running large scale Big Data clusters".
Best Practices for Effective Website Testing & Optimization (Webinar)Monetate
Watch the webinar: http://monetate.com/webinar/best-practices-for-effective-website-testing-optimization/
Not all website testing tools are created equal. Bryan Eisenberg, bestselling author and recognized authority and pioneer in online marketing, will discuss best practices in website optimization that any website testing solution must support.
Bryan, who recently published his “Website Testing & Optimization Buyer’s Guide for the Enterprise,” will be joined by Carlos Del Rio, Director of Conversion Analysis & Digital Strategy at Unbounce, and Monetate’s Adam Figueira, who will present case studies from the different tools that Bryan reviewed and help explain the difference between self-service and full-service website testing and optimization.
Surviving the Software Selection ProcessAnthony D'Ugo
I presented at a CMA Ontario professional development event to 50+ attendees on Dec 3, 2009, and again on Dec 17, 2009 due to a sold out first session with an accompanying waiting list. I shared insights and approaches with the attendees to help them find opportunities to reduce the costs, risks, and time associated with software evaluation and selection. I was then asked to write an article on the topic for the CMA Ontario Member Newsletter because of the high level of interest from their members - published on Jan 2010.
Hosted by UAT Domain Expert, Stuart Bierig, this hands-on test management crash course will provide you with practical tools for accelerating remote ERP UAT.
Start Every Conversation with AI: The Front Door for Intelligent Customer Ser...Aggregage
Self-service is on the rise. More and more customers are looking to solve their own issues without human intervention.
Enter a conversational AI solution for your contact center.
AI virtual agents can help resolve a lot of routine and repetitive interactions, but not all are created equal. Some customer service interactions require a human —but just because some calls must be transferred to a live agent doesn’t mean they can’t all begin with AI.
In a 6-minute customer service call, 75% of that time goes to live agents doing manual research. There’s authentication, information gathering, trying to route the call to the appropriate location, and so on. Only 25% of the call is valued customer interaction. How can you render this process more efficient and give more space to the valued interaction to shine?
By starting every conversation with AI.
In this webinar, you’ll learn:
The importance of an intelligent front door at the beginning of every interaction
What calls are best handled by a collaboration between AI and live agents
How information gathering and authentication in natural language through an AI agent can cut down on AHT and save money on operating costs
What the intelligent front door experience looks like in a live demonstrationSelf-service is on the rise. More and more customers are looking to solve their own issues without human intervention.
Enter a conversational AI solution for your contact center.
AI virtual agents can help resolve a lot of routine and repetitive interactions, but not all are created equal. Some customer service interactions require a human —but just because some calls must be transferred to a live agent doesn’t mean they can’t all begin with AI.
In a 6-minute customer service call, 75% of that time goes to live agents doing manual research. There’s authentication, information gathering, trying to route the call to the appropriate location, and so on. Only 25% of the call is valued customer interaction. How can you render this process more efficient and give more space to the valued interaction to shine?
By starting every conversation with AI.
In this webinar, you’ll learn:
• The importance of an intelligent front door at the beginning of every interaction
• What calls are best handled by a collaboration between AI and live agents
• How information gathering and authentication in natural language through an AI agent can cut down on AHT and save money on operating costs
• What the intelligent front door experience looks like in a live demonstration
Improve your content: The What, Why, Where and How about A/B Testingintrotodigital
A/B testing, also known as split testing, is a user experience research methodology where users are randomly split into two or more groups to see different versions of the same element. This presentation explains what is A/B testing, why you need it, where you can apply it and how to conduct an A/B test.
The Wall Street Journal - Optimizing MembershipOptimizely
For the past three years, The Wall Street Journal has used experimentation to help create their membership experience. Starting with acquisition and expanding to engagement, product, and retention testing, WSJ has built a data-driven culture that leverages these experiments to deliver a premium experience that grows their base and keeps members coming back for more.
In this webinar, Olivia Simon from The Wall Street Journal’s optimization team shares how WSJ created their robust and successful testing program.
You’ll learn:
How to think about testing in a membership ecosystem
How WSJ prioritizes tests and earns stakeholder buy-in
About WSJ’s emphasis on testing throughout the customer acquisition funnel
How WSJ expanded their testing funnel beyond acquisition, and the key testing moments they target for consumer engagement and retention
How to hire dedicated developers for your next project (7 proven tips)Katy Slemon
Looking to hire dedicated developers for MVP, startup, or existing project? Check out the top 7 proven tips before hiring dedicated developers for your mission-critical project.
7 Questions to Ask Your Prospective Outsourced Product Development Vendortrigentsoftware
This SlideShare on `7 Questions to Ask Your Prospective Outsourced Product Development Vendor' will help you narrow down your choices for selecting the best outsourcing partner for your product development
Making Your Hypothesis Work Harder to Inform Future Product StrategyOptimizely
At Treatwell, each experiment goes beyond improving a single business metric. Experimentation works to evolve their product while enriching customer insights in order to deliver the best digital experience to their users. Join Laura Howard, Lead Product Manager, and Dennis Meisner, Senior Product Analyst, to learn their secret to making their hypothesis work harder and how getting their hypothesis right has improved Treatwell’s funnel progression and order health, as well as helped them make critical decisions on their product experience.
Integrating the Voice of the Customer into Your Product's DevelopmentCentercode
This webinar will show you how to integrate the voice of the customer throughout your product development process, from MVP to release. We'll look at how to leverage feedback from your customers with different stakeholders in your company to build a better product. Use this link to view the on-demand webinar: https://www.centercode.com/webinar/2016/may/
The Leaders Guide to Getting Started with Automated TestingJames Briers
Conventional testing is yesterday’s news, is required but needs the same overhaul that has happened in development. It needs to be a slicker operation that really identifies the risk associated with release and protects the business from serious system failure. The only way to achieve this is to remove the humans, they are prone to error, take a long time, cost a lot of money and don’t always do what they are told.
Automation needs to be adopted as a total process, not a bit part player. Historically automation has focussed on the User Interface, which can be a start, but is often woefully lacking. Implementing an Automation Eco-System, sees automation drive through to the interface or service layer, enabling far higher reuse of automated scripts, encompasses the environment and the test data within it’s strategy, providing a robust, repeatable and reusable asset.
Don’t just automate the obvious. Automation is not a black box testing technique. Rather it is mirroring the development and building an exercise schedule for the code. Take your testing to the next level and realise the real benefits of a modern Automation Eco-system.
Join our webinar to learn best practices for maximizing user experience and productivity in Service Cloud. Learn from our Salesforce PM and UX service leads on how you as an #AwesomeAdmin can create engaging experiences for your agents and help them solve cases faster with pre-built apps and automation.
Talk given by Ravi Kishore Valeti, Software Engineering LMTS at Salesforce, at GIDS in April 2016
Most Enterprises have been thinking of (and some of them are already) running BDaaS and performing analytics over their Big Data to help make key business decisions. This talk is about "what it takes to operationalize BDaaS, challenges in successfully running large scale Big Data clusters".
Best Practices for Effective Website Testing & Optimization (Webinar)Monetate
Watch the webinar: http://monetate.com/webinar/best-practices-for-effective-website-testing-optimization/
Not all website testing tools are created equal. Bryan Eisenberg, bestselling author and recognized authority and pioneer in online marketing, will discuss best practices in website optimization that any website testing solution must support.
Bryan, who recently published his “Website Testing & Optimization Buyer’s Guide for the Enterprise,” will be joined by Carlos Del Rio, Director of Conversion Analysis & Digital Strategy at Unbounce, and Monetate’s Adam Figueira, who will present case studies from the different tools that Bryan reviewed and help explain the difference between self-service and full-service website testing and optimization.
Surviving the Software Selection ProcessAnthony D'Ugo
I presented at a CMA Ontario professional development event to 50+ attendees on Dec 3, 2009, and again on Dec 17, 2009 due to a sold out first session with an accompanying waiting list. I shared insights and approaches with the attendees to help them find opportunities to reduce the costs, risks, and time associated with software evaluation and selection. I was then asked to write an article on the topic for the CMA Ontario Member Newsletter because of the high level of interest from their members - published on Jan 2010.
Hosted by UAT Domain Expert, Stuart Bierig, this hands-on test management crash course will provide you with practical tools for accelerating remote ERP UAT.
Start Every Conversation with AI: The Front Door for Intelligent Customer Ser...Aggregage
Self-service is on the rise. More and more customers are looking to solve their own issues without human intervention.
Enter a conversational AI solution for your contact center.
AI virtual agents can help resolve a lot of routine and repetitive interactions, but not all are created equal. Some customer service interactions require a human —but just because some calls must be transferred to a live agent doesn’t mean they can’t all begin with AI.
In a 6-minute customer service call, 75% of that time goes to live agents doing manual research. There’s authentication, information gathering, trying to route the call to the appropriate location, and so on. Only 25% of the call is valued customer interaction. How can you render this process more efficient and give more space to the valued interaction to shine?
By starting every conversation with AI.
In this webinar, you’ll learn:
The importance of an intelligent front door at the beginning of every interaction
What calls are best handled by a collaboration between AI and live agents
How information gathering and authentication in natural language through an AI agent can cut down on AHT and save money on operating costs
What the intelligent front door experience looks like in a live demonstrationSelf-service is on the rise. More and more customers are looking to solve their own issues without human intervention.
Enter a conversational AI solution for your contact center.
AI virtual agents can help resolve a lot of routine and repetitive interactions, but not all are created equal. Some customer service interactions require a human —but just because some calls must be transferred to a live agent doesn’t mean they can’t all begin with AI.
In a 6-minute customer service call, 75% of that time goes to live agents doing manual research. There’s authentication, information gathering, trying to route the call to the appropriate location, and so on. Only 25% of the call is valued customer interaction. How can you render this process more efficient and give more space to the valued interaction to shine?
By starting every conversation with AI.
In this webinar, you’ll learn:
• The importance of an intelligent front door at the beginning of every interaction
• What calls are best handled by a collaboration between AI and live agents
• How information gathering and authentication in natural language through an AI agent can cut down on AHT and save money on operating costs
• What the intelligent front door experience looks like in a live demonstration
Improve your content: The What, Why, Where and How about A/B Testingintrotodigital
A/B testing, also known as split testing, is a user experience research methodology where users are randomly split into two or more groups to see different versions of the same element. This presentation explains what is A/B testing, why you need it, where you can apply it and how to conduct an A/B test.
The Wall Street Journal - Optimizing MembershipOptimizely
For the past three years, The Wall Street Journal has used experimentation to help create their membership experience. Starting with acquisition and expanding to engagement, product, and retention testing, WSJ has built a data-driven culture that leverages these experiments to deliver a premium experience that grows their base and keeps members coming back for more.
In this webinar, Olivia Simon from The Wall Street Journal’s optimization team shares how WSJ created their robust and successful testing program.
You’ll learn:
How to think about testing in a membership ecosystem
How WSJ prioritizes tests and earns stakeholder buy-in
About WSJ’s emphasis on testing throughout the customer acquisition funnel
How WSJ expanded their testing funnel beyond acquisition, and the key testing moments they target for consumer engagement and retention
How to hire dedicated developers for your next project (7 proven tips)Katy Slemon
Looking to hire dedicated developers for MVP, startup, or existing project? Check out the top 7 proven tips before hiring dedicated developers for your mission-critical project.
7 Questions to Ask Your Prospective Outsourced Product Development Vendortrigentsoftware
This SlideShare on `7 Questions to Ask Your Prospective Outsourced Product Development Vendor' will help you narrow down your choices for selecting the best outsourcing partner for your product development
Making Your Hypothesis Work Harder to Inform Future Product StrategyOptimizely
At Treatwell, each experiment goes beyond improving a single business metric. Experimentation works to evolve their product while enriching customer insights in order to deliver the best digital experience to their users. Join Laura Howard, Lead Product Manager, and Dennis Meisner, Senior Product Analyst, to learn their secret to making their hypothesis work harder and how getting their hypothesis right has improved Treatwell’s funnel progression and order health, as well as helped them make critical decisions on their product experience.
Integrating the Voice of the Customer into Your Product's DevelopmentCentercode
This webinar will show you how to integrate the voice of the customer throughout your product development process, from MVP to release. We'll look at how to leverage feedback from your customers with different stakeholders in your company to build a better product. Use this link to view the on-demand webinar: https://www.centercode.com/webinar/2016/may/
Top Tips to a Successful eDiscovery Software DemoMark Walker
Because the use of technology to manage discovery has become so widespread, we take for granted that those seeking software solutions to discovery needs have a good understanding of a sound software
evaluation process.
9 Secrets to Launch on the AppExchange [Webinar]CodeScience
After helping our customers launch 100+ products on the AppExchange, CodeScience understands the critical milestones to go from idea to app. Leverage our insider knowledge to your advantage. This webinar shares our best tips on how to succeed and what pitfalls to avoid.
Top Software panies to Outsource.pdfTesting ComMindfire LLC
However, finding one good company is a constant concern as the demand for software testing specialists is rising, and many companies face a severe shortage of them. Getting started with a list of companies is just not the right way to do it. First, you must know how to begin your search for a company that meets your needs. Hence, unlike other blogs, we’ll help you get started on your search for the best testing companies to outsource.
FAQs in training automation: Your questions answeredaccessplanit
Where do you start when looking for an automated system? What kind of questions do you ask suppliers? Who do you involve in the buying process? This presentation shares the answers to these questions and more including top tips to ensure that you get the information that you require.
The Ultimate Workflow Management Software Buyers Guide 2023Kashish Trivedi
Workflow management software can do wonders for an organization that struggles to find consistency in recurring processes. They can save time and money, reduce errors, and make life easier for employees and customers alike. But what should you look for when buying a workflow management software? Well, lucky for you, we make one ourselves. It’s kind of our whole thing. So we promise to steer you in the right direction toward the software that’s best for you.
DevOps unquestionably is one of the most transformational movements to happen to IT and is helping IT deliver to ideas to market faster. But where does one start? What should we focus on first. This infographic explores what are the critical success factors for ensure success with DevOps. A related eBook is available for download at http://info.scriptrock.com/prerequisites-for-devops-success.
The decision to automate your agency or to change your current Agency Management System is a challenging endeavor—figuring out which one to choose, even more so.
Consumerization of IT, Cloud Computing, IT as a Service and
Goals of DevOps before establish the 4
1) Understand What The Business Goals Are
2) Get Situational Awareness and Watch for the Drift
3) Clearly Define Processes and Stakeholders
4) How Do You Measure It?
In today’s global marketplace, successful companies must be able to integrate and quickly view quality audit information from their manufacturing sites all over the world. This strategic capability has become even more important as manufacturers have moved offshore and have become more complex. The value and immediacy of quality assurance data is a critical element to the survival of competitive manufacturing organizations. Software systems can address these issues.
Source:
Lyons Information Systems, Inc
http://www.lyonsinfo.com
Synergist System Selection & Implementation GuideThe Agency Works
If your agency is considering getting a new project management system, here's a useful guide to selecting and implementing the right system for your business.
1. Brought to you by:
Connect First
Call Center Software
Software Provider Checklist
Ask the right questions to vet your next software.
2. 4
Uptime
When you’re relying on a business to run, it has the biggest impact
on your ROI. Uptime comes down to overall business performance
based upon the cost of downtime. Cost of downtime can run
between thousand to tens of thousands of dollars.
QUESTIONS TO ASK
Can you provide your uptime for the last 6 months?
What is your average global uptime?
Scalability
You need the ability to build in a single tenant or multiple tenants to
the size needed to ensure software usability without performance
impact.
QUESTIONS TO ASK
What type of architecture is the platform based upon?
Does the software have capacity limits?
Can we scale up and down without having to interact or reach
out?
Redundancy
You need multi-location infrastructure (separate regional
locations), automatic failovers that aren’t dependent upon
physical changes to hardware and automated monitoring to
ensure the provider’s technical resources are instantly notified
when there are impacts to performance.
QUESTIONS TO ASK
What type of failover system do you have in place?
Is manual work available in case of emergency?
Are there regionally located redundancies?
How often are failover systems tested?
What are testing mechanisms for disaster recovery?
(In other words, are failovers forced on individual
modules or environments to test automations?)
SLA
Many tech companies don’t give you SLAs around impact or cost to
business, but give SLAs on percentage of licensing. This can hide overall
quality of agreement.
QUESTIONS TO ASK
What is your SLA?
What is your compensation for below SLA performance?
What is your SLA compensation based upon? (i.e. licensing?
Invoice?)
Pricing
When choosing a software provider, evaluate several
options to establish a pricing baseline. To find the best
technology that fits within your budget and toolset
requirements, learn the industry’s value system in
determining price to understand what you are paying
for. A lot of companies don’t know to give proper
valuation to a cost.
What should you be asking?
3. 5
QUESTIONS TO ASK
What does your pricing include?
Implementation
Integrations
Development
Training
Support
Unlimited support
Is there undocumented pricing on storage?
Are there product feature sets not included in the base price?
In the call center space, are there per port costs?
Pricing Flexibility
You might see really common pricing structures
across an industry. Some companies need to use
a product more seasonally or in response to
unforeseen events. Determine if there is flexibility
for you to modify the pricing structure and
whether the existing pricing works for your
business.
QUESTIONS TO ASK
Are there multiple pricing models?
Do you monitor usage to align with forecasted
usage?
Contractual flexibility
Most software companies (within SaaS and cloud based modelling) are valuated based upon
term to contract. Learn the extent to which you are bound to the contract.
QUESTIONS TO ASK
Is there a standard annual termination for convenience clause?
What are the terms and costs associated with early termination?
Data
You want a place to maintain records securely for
an extended length of time. Be aware of what is
happening with your data, your access and any
compliance considerations.
QUESTIONS TO ASK
What is the process to access my
data?
Who is the accountable system of
record?
Do you have clauses in the terms and
conditions to account for who is the
system of record?
Is there anything in your disaster
recovery plan to ensure data loss
doesn’t happen?
Do you store snap shots in case of user error to recover lost data?
If we change providers or terminate the contract, do you have a process in place to
easily attain all your data?
4. 6
Security
Evaluate the specific security you need for your data and
recognize the cost needed to maintain security. The company
needs to have solid security policies, backup policies and
clearly define their policies in their contract to move forward.
QUESTIONS TO ASK
Is there live monitoring?
How long do security patches take to deploy?
Support
Support isn’t the sexiest thing to advertise and can be misconstrued,
but it’s also a hugely underrated criteria for choosing your next provider.
You don’t want to be arguing with someone in their second or third
language, only to find out the person can have no immediate impact
on your issue. While all companies proclaim how much they care, it’s the
quality of what happens after the deal is closed that you should be hone
in on.
QUESTIONS TO ASK
Where is the support located?
When is support available?
Is there a dedicated representative to handle calls?
How much support do I receive?
What type of support is not included in our contract price?
What is the average first response time?
What type of troubleshooting information do you offer and where is it stored?
Development
A fraction of a company’s development should be comfortably
accepted offsite as long as the management was handled by
an in-house person. You don’t want to sign on with a company
who outsources a bulk of their work and has to make extensive
calls in order to start handling your issue. Learn a company’s
development practices to discover how aptly they will support
your impending needs.
QUESTIONS TO ASK
When code is outsourced, how do you control for
quality?
What are the development QA guidelines?
Are there alpha, beta and control change
processes?
Is the QA team in-house?
Implementation
The implementation process can get a little wonky if the company doesn’t have streamlined
processes in place. You should expect your implementation process to be timely and the range of
work accounted for.
QUESTIONS TO ASK
Do you track your timeline accuracy?
(If yes) How close are you to the scoped timeline?
What happens in the event of scope creep?
5. 7
APIs
APIs are a big part of your success. It’s important to know you
have the documentation you need to accomplish your goals. You
don’t want to get stuck in something with realized misperceptions.
QUESTIONS TO ASK
Do you provide an open API?
What are your limitations around APIs?
What does your API documentation look like?
Can I get access to bring in my own resources?
Are you willing to partner with my development group
to ensure well-implemented integrations?
Integrations
When looking for a new software provider, you need to
determine if it needs to be integrated into your existing
software landscape. Make sure to outline every aspect of the
integrations you need and allocate the necessary resources on
the front end for timeliness and scope alignment.
QUESTIONS TO ASK
Is there an engineer who handles integrations?
Can you integrate with my current software?
Will you work with me to develop an integration to fit
my needs?
Operations
Ask questions about implementation cycles and the standard
implementation walkthrough. If there’s any complexity, there should
be a good map or model for standard operating procedures. The
provider should be doing good discovery and if they’re not doing the
discovery on the front end, they probably won’t once they close the
deal.
QUESTIONS TO ASK
What are your operational processes for implementation?
What are your operational processes for transition from
implementation to support?
What is your customer retention rate?
Compliance (contact center specific)
In the contact center world, you can find software to technically handle compliance issues. Learn
what the provider’s limitations and strengths are around protecting your business.
QUESTIONS TO ASK
Do you incorporate the following solutions?
TCPA
Am I provided with the tools to maintain my own compliance?
PCI
Am I provided with the tools to maintain my own compliance?
To what level are you certified?
HIPPA
Am I provided with the tools to maintain my own compliance?
6. 8
As you begin to probe into a
companies’ true practices,
you will be able to differentiate
a company’s marketing from
their priorities. Not every
software will have everything
you want, but it’s important
to look at a company against
the whole industry landscape
to see how well they do in
fact accommodate customer
needs versus the other way
around.
Bottom line, amazing support
is never underrated. And
there are those diamond in
the rough companies that
revolutionize an industry by
making what they do all about
the customer.
About Connect First
Insert blurb here
Conclusion