The power of people: why it pays to take references and meet vendors’ customers

The process of upgrading your enterprise software is a significant time and money investment – why complicate it further by seeking out references? Richard Doughty looks at why you should seek out references, what you’ll get from it, and how to make the most of the opportunity.

Enterprise software investments typically represent significant financial commitments, often reaching into seven or eight figures when considering implementation costs, software licences, infrastructure, training, and ongoing maintenance.

Beyond the direct costs and the software functionality, these procurement decisions can impact organisational efficiency, employee satisfaction, and even company culture for years to come.

Speaking with existing customers serves as a crucial risk mitigation strategy – after all, there’s nothing like hearing straight from the horse’s mouth about the quality of software, the implementation processes, and possibly most importantly – what it’s like working with the vendor.

Taking references might strike you as nothing more than a time-consuming formality, distracting from more serious matters, but the truth is that it’s probably the most valuable part of the selection process; it’s about the only time you’re not reliant on the vendor providing information.

So, how best to go about this?

Uncovering the true implementation story

Understandably, vendors naturally present their best-case during sales processes, whereas references can provide unvarnished insights into real-world performance.

Perhaps the most valuable aspect of reference conversations is benefitting from experience of the actual implementation process. This can reveal any variation between sales promises and delivery reality, for example whether the vendor generally met their dates and deliverables, as well as how much flexibility they showed throughout the project.

Very often references will be happy to provide insights on what they would do the same again and what they would do differently. If an operator is happy to provide a reference then you should assume it went at least ok, but that opportunity to benefit from lessons learned is invaluable.

These conversations frequently reveal critical information about:

• Realistic implementation timelines versus initial estimates
• Technical challenges that only become apparent during deployment
• Internal resource structures and key resources on the vendor side
• Training requirements, knowledge transfer and user adoption hurdles
• Hidden costs and resource requirements not mentioned in proposals

References can also share strategies they used to overcome these challenges, potentially saving your organisation significant time and resources.

Evaluating cultural fit and support quality

Software capabilities are important, but the vendor’s cultural fit and support quality often determine the long-term success of the relationship. These reference conversations can provide unique insights into these crucial but hard-to-quantify factors, and how well the vendor understands and adapts to different work cultures.

Current customers can describe their experience with the support team, including responsiveness to critical issues, willingness to consider enhancement requests, and overall communication quality.

Crucially, these references should be just like you in scope and complexity; size is less of an issue. Say you’re a quad-play B2C & B2B operator – then you need to speak with other quad-play B2C & B2B operators.

Use case validation

While vendors will wax lyrical as to how robust their software is when handling various use cases, references provide concrete validation to these claims.

Speaking with organisations with comparable requirements helps to verify that the solution can truly address your specific needs.

References can share details about:

• Integration challenges with existing systems
• Customisation capabilities and limitations
• Performance under real-world conditions
• Industry-specific compliance and regulatory requirements
• Ability to adapt to unique business processes

Long-term partnership assessment

With an average enterprise software vendor relationship lasting five to ten years or longer, it’s essential to understand how your chosen partner performs across such a timeframe.

Software licences come and go, but the relationships you foster will likely extend well beyond the lifecycle of the project. Though the senior level relationships are paramount, the assistants and executives of today will be the C-suite of tomorrow, so don’t forget to foster those strong working relationships at all levels – it’ll be a big help later on in future updates and upgrades.

References can provide valuable perspectives on:

• Their track record of delivering on product roadmap promises
• Commitments to customer success beyond the initial sale
• Handling of contract renewals and price increases
• Evolution of the business relationship over time

Change management

An area often overlooked, though not directly relevant to the choice of vendor, is the internal change management process. Introducing a new BSS/OSS will create disruption and change for many users. Getting their buy-in and early adoption of a new system is critical.

Perfectly good and very expensive systems can encounter massive non-technical adoption issues because the user groups have not been included in the change process. Learning from the experiences of other operators can make for a much smoother cutover to a new BSS/OSS platform.

How to make the most of reference calls and visits

The key is to get your references in early, or at least as early as possible.

Look beyond the references you’re provided with – use your professional network to find additional customers, particularly those who may have faced challenges or terminated their relationship with the supplier.

Vendors should be able to offer up at least half a dozen similar implementations from long-time customers, with senior members of those customer teams more than happy to talk to you – the potential vendor can even make the introductions.

To maximise the value of your reference conversations, prepare thoroughly and ask probing questions. If you can, find a customer whose project didn’t go brilliantly – it will be much more insightful to speak with them, as opposed to one who had a perfect experience.

Consider requesting references at different stages of their journey – some who have recently implemented the solution, others who have been using it for years. This provides a more complete picture of what to expect throughout the relationship lifecycle.

Phone calls are easy – do them first, but don’t have vendors on the calls or in the meetings. Certainly, for site visits they’ll want to be there on-site and that’s fine – there to pay for lunch – but they shouldn’t be present in meetings.

If there are trade shows coming up, you can even try arranging meetings there. At events such as MWC you might well be able to meet a CEO who may otherwise be too busy.

Make sure to speak with as many customers as possible, and be prepared to visit at least one, preferably two. You’re not competitors, you’re in different markets, but you face similar challenges – learn from each other.

While reference checking requires significant time and effort, it's an investment that pays dividends throughout the software lifecycle. The insights gained can help avoid costly mistakes, set realistic expectations, and establish the foundation for a fruitful long-term partnership.

Remember – references are most valuable when approached as a learning opportunity rather than a checkbox exercise. The goal is not just to validate your choice but to gather insights that will help ensure a successful implementation and ongoing relationship with your chosen vendor.