We’ve made it to an integral part of your contact center software buying journey. Evaluating vendors is a critical decision after you’ve identified the need for software and conducted research on your options. By now, you should have a comprehensive list of potential solutions for your contact center. It’s time to dig a little deeper to get closer to choosing the software that aligns best with your contact center’s operational goals, requirements, and budget.
I’ll go over some best practices to effectively assess vendors, ensuring you make an empowered and well-informed decision. We’ll be discussing even more about the evaluation process during our next webinar “Tomorrow’s Workforce: Navigating Challenges and Avoiding Pitfalls When Evaluating Contact Center Software,” on Dec 11, 2024 12:00PM EST. Don’t forget to register in advance to learn more about the navigating the buying process from WEM experts.
Without further ado, let’s get into the vendor evaluation process.
Key factors to consider when evaluating vendors
Evaluating software vendors involves more than comparing features and costs. It’s about understanding the company itself and determining whether they’d be an ideal partner for your business. You’ll want a reliable, long-term contact center software vendor to continuously support your business. Here are some key factors to consider during the evaluation process.
Vendor expertise
Vendors that serve as industry leaders with proven records are more likely to have experience in providing solutions to meet unique challenges. These vendor are more likely to tailor your workforce solutions to your business’s exact needs. Expertise can be evaluated by examining:
- Success stories of this vendor’s implementing solutions in your industry or within a similar business model.
- Tenure in the contact center industry.
- Rewards for industry innovation or recognition from trusted analysts.
Reputation and positive customer experience
Do the vendors on your list have positive industry reputations? Reputations can offer insights into whether the vendor is offering quality products and supporting services. Independent sources like online forums, reviews, and testimonials can provide insights into vendor reputation. Browse and note trends in feedback across sources regarding reliability, responsiveness, and return on investment (ROI).
Align vendor values with your business
Expertise and reputation are important factors, but value alignment is an often forgotten consideration. Does the vendors’ mission and service align with your company values? Sharing a commitment to customer-centric interactions, ethical practices, and innovation will build a stronger long-term business relationship. This is paramount in the contact center space, particularly when companies value employee engagement and experience. Choose a vendor that demonstrates a commitment to enhancing workforce engagement management in their solutions.
Compare available features to business needs
When researching vendors, you should’ve developed a list of “must-haves” and “nice-to-haves” when considering features or capabilities. Now, it’s time to compare how each vendor delvers on this list. While making comparison, closely consider:
- Customizability. Can the software scale with your business and offer flexible option as workflows change? ****
- User experience. Employee experience should be a top priority to boost adoption rates and lower training time. Ask for hands-on demos to assess the usability and interface for different employees in your business.
- Integrations. Consider whether the software seamlessly integrates with your existing technology stack like CRMs, HR systems, analytics tools, and workforce management (WFM) systems.
Evaluate the quality of customer support services
Beyond the software a company offers, the support and services available are just as important. The quality of a customer support team can greatly impact your overall experience, determining whether you get the most out of your new contact center software. Be sure to ask vendors about:
- Implementation services. Does the vendor offer onboarding and training services to ensure a smooth transition?
- Continuous support. Support services shouldn't end at implementation. Post-implementation support is necessary for continued success with a new software. Consider the vendor’s account management, standard response time to inquiries, and available technical resources.
- Community resources. Vendors with active user communities, resource libraries, and notifications of product updates show a commitment to customer support.
Consider pricing and analyze ROI
Understanding pricing structure and calculating your ROI is one of the most important steps in the vendor evaluation process. Just keep in mind, although cost is a major factor, it’s essential to look beyond the sticker price and conduct a Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) analysis, alongside calculating potential ROI. This helps ensure your contact center software is delivering long-term value.
Understand contact center software pricing model
Different vendors offer a variety of pricing models, ranging from per-seat or -user, usage-based, and subscription-based pricing. Take time to understand how each option aligns with your organization’s needs and growth strategy. If you expect your contact center to grow exponentially in the near future, a pricing model that provides flexible costs will be more beneficial than one with strict pricing or add-on fees.
Analyze Total Cost of Ownership (TCO)
To assess TCO, you’ll need to consider every expense associated with adopting a new software, outside of the initial price. This includes the cost of employee training, implementation and integration, ongoing support, and any customizations your business may need. Accounting for these costs will give you a view of the bigger picture when assessing the long-term value of your vendor choice.
Thoroughly calculate ROI
Meaningfully analyzing your ROI goes beyond estimates and “what-if” scenarios. A thorough analysis requires transparent access to real operational data and time to understand it. When engaging with vendors, offer datasets with KPIs or current workforce inefficiencies, and ask how their solutions can improve the provided metrics and concern. Make sure the solutions each vendor provides is backed by clear, supporting data.
Collaborate with internal stakeholders
Collaborate across your organization throughout the buying process, but when assessing ROI and TCO, be sure to get diverse insights. Working with the Finance team may be an obvious step when calculating ROI, but don’t forget additional teams. For example, Operations may provide additional insights into actual efficiency gains based on current workloads, while IT can offer informed opinions on integration costs.
Don’t get stuck on the numbers
Qualitative ROI is just as important as quantitative ROI. Consider benefits such as improved employee engagement, higher levels of customer satisfaction, and better scalability. Although these factors may not be accounted for in immediate cost savings, they can contribute to long-term business success.
Thoughtfully structure your vendor evaluation process
Having a structured approach to evaluating vendors will ensure consistency throughout the process. Keep on reading for a loose framework you can follow to structure the process.
Develop a vendor scorecard
Create a scoring system to compare vendors against your key criteria like integration capabilities, support services, software functionalities and cost. Weigh each criteria based on your organization’s needs and priorities. This will ensure each vendor’s final score reflects what matters most yo tour business.
Conduct assessments cross-functionally
Involve stakeholders from across your organization in the evaluation and scoring process. Ensure IT teams are there to validate technical standards, Operations teams area available to assess scaling with workloads, and Customer Service teams can evaluate the user experience.
Consider options before requesting demos
If you’re looking to get a better understanding of a software solution, but its still early on in the evaluation process, you’ll want to find the middle-ground between a general overview and a customized demo. Consider requesting a pre-recorded video or marketing resources before a demo. These options allow you to explore the software without the time burden on your team or vendors. Once you’ve determined that a vendor may be a good fit for your requirements, reserve a demo to continue the evaluation process.
Request a custom demo when you’re ready
During the evaluation process, a product demo is one of the best ways to evaluate whether a solution will meet your contact center’s needs. However, a customized demo is more valuable than one targeted at a general audience. A tailored demo to your organization’s workflows and pain points will offer greater insight than a generic walkthrough. Consider the following steps when structuring your evaluation and before booking your custom demo.
Request a comprehensive discovery session
Discovery sessions typically precede demos, offering organization’s the opportunity to have detailed conversations with a vendor. This step will help ensure a custom demo aligns with your unique needs and challenges. During the session, communicate the challenges you business currently has, positive aspects of your current workflow, and specific use cases a vendor can provide solutions for. The more information a vendor has, the more relevant and useful your custom demo will be.
Define top priorities and desired demo outcomes
Provide vendors with a list of desired outcomes that your business prioritizes. Do you want better omnichannel integration, enhanced employee engagement, or improved analytics and reporting? Having all of the above would be ideal, but make sure vendors know what you value most. This will allow them to showcase software features that will be best benefit your contact center.
Emphasize use-case alignment
During your demo, a vendor should provide solutions to how their product will perform in a real world scenario unique to your business needs. Request the custom demo is structured around your actual workflows, showing how the contact center software handles challenges you provided during your discovery sessions. For example, if managing dynamic call volume is a challenge for your contact center, make sure the demo covers features like precise scheduling that can solve your problem.
Be an active participant during demos
You’ll want to actively engage during the demo, asking questions, requesting clarification, and exploring different contact center “what-ifs” that come to mind. Having key stakeholders as active participants in the demo process will ensure different needs are addressed across your organization. Active discussions with vendors will help provide actionable insights into how their solutions will benefit your business.
Check vendor references
References are integral when hiring someone for a job. Choosing a vendor for contact center software is no different. Reference checks can provide crucial insight into a vendor’s services and offer different perspectives. Be sure to explore both positive and negative experiences form references to get an accurate, balanced perspective.
Survey current clients
Existing customers can give you valuable insights into a vendor’s current products and services. Inquire about how the software solution performs and stacks up to the client’s needs. Is it reliable? Does it scale? Is it easy to use? It’s also important to inquire about vendor support services. Is the support team responsive? Did they effectively assist your business during implementation? Don’t be afraid to get specific with questions like “How effectively does the vendor address your business challenges ?” or “How has the software impacted your workforce efficiency, employee satisfaction, or KPIs?”
Collect former client feedback
When deciding to invest in your contact center, you’ll want the good, the bad, and the ugly when making a vendor decision. Feedback from former clients are just as valuable —if not more so—than information from current clients. Conversations with former clients can reveal key details into the negative aspects of a vendor’s solutions. Don’t be afraid to be direct with questions like “What impacted your decision to switch vendors?” or Were there specific unmet expectations that influenced your decision?” Having this information will give you a bigger picture of the potential risks associated with choosing a vendor.
Balance the feedback and open transparent conversations
After speaking with current and former clients, you’ll likely have a mix of positive reviews and critical ones. It’s important to create a balanced view of a vendor with the information you receive. Although a vendor was a poor fit for one business, consider if their solutions fit better with your workforce challenges and align with your needs.
If you have concerns about a vendor’s poor reviews, consider bringing this up in a discussion. A reputable vendor should offer transparent conversation surrounding critical feedback form former clients. If addressing critical feedback is met with a negative response, this may be a red flag . Similarly, if a vendor provides references, but the list seems overly curated, consider this a potential red flag as well. Be sure to explore these red flags further through discussions with your stakeholders and with the vendor.
Avoid common evaluation pitfalls
During the evaluation step, try your best to avoid these common pitfalls.
- Overemphasizing features. Features are an important part of a software solution but other aspects like support services, scalability, and usability are just as crucial. A feature-rich tool can fail if it lacks proper support.
- Failing to evaluate vendor stability. Think about whether a vendor has the strategic vision, innovative spirit, and financial stability to continue supporting your business long-term.
- Neglecting end users. Frontline employees will be the end users of this software, using it daily to improve their workdays. Incorporate their feedback into your evaluations, ensuring they have what they need in a solution to succeed at work. This will ensure higher adoption rates and better training experiences.
Evaluating several vendors can be a daunting step in the contact center software buying process. Develop a structured evaluation process with thorough assessments to make a decision that’s best for business, employees, and customers.
Next time, we’ll cover the internal purchasing process, an often overlooked step in the buyer’s journey. Be sure to register for “Tomorrow’s Workforce: Navigating Challenges and Avoiding Pitfalls When Evaluating Contact Center Software,” on December 11th at 12:00PM EST to learn more about the purchasing process from start to finish. See you next time!
Check out the entire “How to Buy Contact Center Software” series:
Part 1: Evaluate the need
Part 2: Do your research
Part 3: Get to know the vendors
Part 4: Know your internal purchasing process
Part 5: Contact center success stories
Part 6: Your buying action plan
