When considering changing to a new vendor, it can be invaluable to speak to current clients and get the lay of the land. You can either try and find current clients through your 20 group, at conferences, or ask for references from the vendors themselves.
Common Questions to ask are as follows:
• How happy are you with the service?
This answer may depend on where you discovered the reference. Vendors are usually remiss to provide former or unhappy client info (though we often ask for former client contacts). Having a general feeling of how they feel about their vendor will start to build rapport, and give you a feeling for the vendor and your reference.
• Have you seen an increase in leads? Sales? Service Appts?
What we ask here will obviously depend on what the vendor or service is. Chat questions should revolve around chat leads, quality of chat conversations, and lead closing percentage. A Digital retailing tool has several avenues to convert, including chat, trade tool, leasing tools, and more to consider.
• Have often to you meet with them?
We want to meet with our vendors monthly at a minimum, with follow up meetings as needed to ensure we have changes implemented or to interpret the results of recent changes.
• What is their reporting like? Can you make decisions based on it?
If possible, see if they will show you samples. Can you clearly understand the intent of the marketing? Can you see what results they are getting from the information provided? Do you have enough information to make informed changes from reviewing the data?
• Can you tell me about a success you have had with vendor
Listen to what results the client received from the vendor, and how they feel about those results. If possible, ask how they measured or verified the results, and what metrics they used to judge this campaign a success.
• What is your favorite thing about working with them?
While it’s great to have a vendor that sends us box seats, or gift cards for the holidays, we are listening for results. Things like great customer service, clearly proven value for the money, and knowledgable vendor partner who shares data are some highlights we have heard in the past.
• What would you change about them?
In this day and age of many predefined service offerings, there are many things dealers often wish to change about vendors. We often hear things about slow turn around on help tickets, poor communication from reps, and slow updates to the product. You can also use this question to ask if there were any other vendors they had preferred working with in the past
• Is there anything else I should know about working with them?
Let people rant about their vendor, and any other vendors, and you can learn a lot about their perspective in general on vendors, and how much weight you should give their opinion. They may also prefer certain products, have great tricks for conversion or implementation, or you just might make a new friend.