Start with the number, not with the features
Before you look at a single tool, write down two numbers: how many people you have to reach, and how many of them have no company email address. That second number decides half the purchase.
If it is small, you have an intranet problem, and there are twenty products that solve it, several of them already included in what you pay for today. If it is large, and in manufacturing, retail, logistics, contract cleaning or care it usually is, you have a channel problem, and most of those twenty products will be no use to you however long their feature list.
The nine questions for every supplier
01
How do people without a company email get signed up?
Look for a concrete answer: codes, links, file import. And ask who does that work, and how long it takes with your actual headcount.
02
Does an app have to be installed?
If the answer is yes and there is no browser alternative, budget for losing people at step one. Ask what happens with older handsets.
03
What exactly do you measure, and at what grain?
Ask to see the analytics screen with data in it, not a slide. And ask whether the figure is aggregated or named, because that is the answer the reps will want from you.
04
Where is the data and who processes it?
Which country the servers are in, transfers outside the UK, sub-processors, the Article 28 processor contract. In writing.
05
What does this actually cost with our headcount?
With every module they showed you in the demo switched on. The figure that matters is the full annual one, not the per-person rate.
06
What happens the day we leave?
How long access lasts, how you get the information back, in what format, and how long it takes for everything to be deleted afterwards.
07
Who sets it up and who keeps it alive?
Whether the supplier includes support and someone to keep the content moving, or whether that is on you. Both answers are fine; what is not fine is finding out in month two.
08
What does your tool not do?
The most useful question on the list. A supplier who cannot answer it, or who says it does everything, is telling you something important about what the relationship will be like.
09
What does this need from our IT department?
Ask it with somebody from IT in the room. An integration with the corporate directory or the HR system can be a project measured in months.
How to compare a price properly
Comparing per-person rates tells you nothing, because every supplier puts different things inside them. What you compare is the annual cost with your headcount and the configuration you are genuinely going to use.
| Line item | What to ask |
|---|---|
| Base rate | Exactly what is included, and whether there is a minimum number of licences |
| Modules | Which of the ones they demonstrated are chargeable, and what they add up to with your headcount |
| Set-up | Whether there is an implementation, training or consultancy charge, and whether it is compulsory |
| Contract term | Minimum term, notice period to cancel, and the annual price review |
| Billing cycle | Whether paying a year up front is cheaper, and what happens if you switch something on or off halfway through that year |
| Growth | What happens if headcount goes up 20 % in peak season |
| Internal cost | The hours of the person who will publish every week. It is real and it appears on no quote |
There are two ways of selling in this market: a published price list, and a quote built for you. If a supplier does not publish a price, ask for one in writing with your employee number on it before the second meeting. The price that turns up at the end of a process is always worse than the one that turns up at the start.
The pilot that actually decides
A demo shows you the supplier's product. A pilot shows you your own company. Set it up like this, and on one site only.
01
A real site, night shift included
Not head office. The pilot has to run where the problem is, because that is where handing out the sign-up codes will fall down.
02
Two weeks and two real announcements
The rota, and something people actually want to read. No test messages.
03
A number at the end
What percentage of that site has signed up, and what percentage has seen the announcements. Those two numbers are the whole evaluation.
04
One question to five people on nights
Whether it reached them, and whether they would go back in. Five two-minute conversations are worth more than the supplier's satisfaction survey.
And compare pilot against pilot if you are down to two tools. Comparing a pilot against a demo is always won by the demo, because in a demo nobody fails to sign up.
Red flags
- The demo runs on invented data and they will not let you open a trial account with yours.
- 'Everything is configurable.' That usually means nothing is solved out of the box and the configuring will be done by you.
- No published price and no written quote until the third meeting.
- Pressure to sign for three years with a discount that expires on Friday.
- They cannot tell you what their tool does not do.
- The case study they show you is an office business, when your problem is on the shop floor.
- The analytics they demonstrate measure impressions and likes rather than people reached.
- Nobody on the supplier's side asks how many of your people have no email. If they do not ask, it is not their problem, and it is going to be yours.
What to take into the internal meeting
When the decision goes upstairs, a feature comparison convinces nobody: every tool has a feed, surveys and documents. Four other things decide it.
- The total annual cost, modules included, for your real headcount.
- The pilot result: sign-up and reach percentages on one named site.
- The answer to the employee representatives' question, already prepared and in writing.
- What happens to the data when the contract ends.