5 Things That Prove a Service Management Vendor is Invested in Your Success

Welcome back to the series – 10 Must Ask Questions When Buying (or re-signing) a Service Management Solution. If you missed previous posts, catch up with the links below.

Question #9: How do you ensure my success?

Major technology purchases can come with unexpected surprises.  Perhaps the perfect project plan created prior to the purchase bears little resemblance to the final project plan. Or maybe the tool doesn’t integrate with other technology as seamlessly as expected. Hiccups happen in many implementations, but hiccups that become disasters happen when the commitment is missing after the sale is finalized.

From the CIO to the technician, service and support are critical to any successful project. The sad fact is that IT is often caught by surprise at the lack of vendor support after making a major software investment. Furthermore, there can be additional costs for services ultimately needed to get the solution in production as desired, all adding insult to injury.

Don’t forget to ask what happens after purchase

IT organizations can be overwhelmed with the purchase process of a new tool, the required implementation, and the disruption of switching from one vendor to another, without losing data, functionality, or skipping a beat in current operations.

Also, none of us are immune to the excitement and hype surrounding some vendors within the market. It can be easy for IT organizations to get caught up in the whirlwind of activity—one company “winning” new customers—and we believe they must have the best solution available. It's important to not lose sight of fully investigating how a vendor plans to support its customers after both sides sign on the dotted line.

Get feedback from current customers

Before making your final selection, it’s imperative to talk to a vendor’s current customers to find out what “Trust” features they offer to ensure an ongoing positive experience.  If possible, talk to customers who have signed on for a second or third contract with the vendor. You will quickly find out which companies are true partners in their customers’ success.  Also check out crowd sourced review forums like G2 Crowd and Gartner Peer Insights to see the “Yelp”-like, real-world reviews.

Organizations will want to fully understand if the service management vendor provides these five things:

• Advanced or customized service and support to fit customer needs
• Ease of engagement - not just while they are selling you their solution, but a year or two down the road
• Plain language contracts - which are easy to understand and related specifically to the solution
• Accessibility of leadership - including executive, product, and technical expertise
• Transparent monitoring of the cloud environment - providing details beyond “up/down” to include where the application is actually running (allowing you to audit compliance to industry, governmental, or other regulatory requirements).

Finally, it’s important to know if current customers believe there is a true “partnership” with their vendor, providing the necessary support years after the initial sale.

Complete service and support

The success of your service management solution is paramount to the overall success of your IT organization. With the EasyVista solution, service and support are critical, offering flexibility and choice from onboarding to education to 24/7 web, phone, and email support. We also believe success and trust go hand-in-hand, EasyVista provides complete transparency into the day-to-day operations of your services, along with its platform.

Starting with plain language contracts, through a structured onboarding process with a dedicated manager and work plan, EasyVista is there for its customers. And they stay at your side all the way through delivery, education, and the life of the solution.

Learn More

Catch up on this full series: 10 Must Ask Questions When Buying (or re-signing) a Service Management Solution

Post 1 – Overview
Post 2 – Closing the Gap Between User Expectations and IT Service Realities
Post 3 – The Emerging Mobility Challenge: Supporting User Productivity in a BYOD World
Post 4 – Services Must be Easy to Deliver to Achieve Service Management Success
Post 5 – Delivering Rapid Business Value with Easy Codeless Service Design
Post 6 – Driving Business Innovation with Service Management
Post 7 – Why Mobile-first Matters in a Service Management Solution
Post 8 – Select Seamless Integration Capabilities for First-rate Service Delivery
Post 9 – How to Calculate Total Cost of Service Delivery of an ITSM Solution
Post 10 – 5 Things That Prove a Service Management Vendor is Invested in Your Success 
Post 11 – Best Practices for Forming a Successful Partnership with a Service Management Vendor