When purchasing an application, do you spend time thinking about what type of support is needed and how often? Does the company you’re purchasing the application from have an excellent reputation for support? How difficult is it to reach the correct individual if you’re experiencing an outage or simply have a question? Support is probably not top of mind during purchase or evaluation of an application, but maybe it should be.
Reliability of not only the application being purchased, but also the application provider is a key ingredient to a successful support partnership. Think carefully about the needs you have and if the provider is flexible enough to meet your requirements. Do you have special needs or require adjustments during certain times of year (a seasonal business)?
Okay, so we can agree that support is important. But how do we move the needle to ensure support receives the recognition it deserves during purchase? Here are a few ideas on what you should ask the application provider:
- Like researching a restaurant or an appliance repair outfit, evaluate the company you plan to purchase from. Do they have testimonials listed on their website? Will they provide a reference list of contacts from their customers so you can discuss how successful the support has been?
- Are they easy to reach when needed? How long does it truly take to get the correct support individual to resolve an open question or concern?
- Do they provide SLAs (Service Level Agreements) or KPI’s (Key Performance Indicators) on response and resolution with their existing customers? Will they share this with a prospective purchaser?
- What is their customer retention rate? One can almost guarantee a direct correlation between a high customer retention rate and outstanding support.
When evaluating an application provider, please spend some time thinking about the level of support you need. The support is what’s left after the deal is complete. Once your company relies on an application, the support provided becomes as important as the purchasing decision.
- Mike Shapiro, CEO, InfinityCTI