What features do you really need?
What features do you really need?
In a competitive market there are two ways to try to get more market share
Make something different
Make something better
There is a saying “Different is better than better”
This presents a real problem for software developers chasing market share and new sales. There is usually one best way of achieving a result. There are variations on the theme but the theme exists none-the-less.
Consider a sales database. It is basically a list of contacts that can be manipulated in different ways.
So it hard to think of a radically alternative way to do the job.
The way to make a “Better” product than the competitors in most instances is to “Add more stuff”. More bells and more whistles, then even more bells and more whistles.
As the developers are searching for more and more stuff the danger arises that they build a piece of software that gets so complex to use that the normal users in your organisation get overwhelmed by how complex the thing is and don’t use it, or use the parts of it that they discover and know – which may not be the exact functionality that will enable them to do their job.
So how do you know what functions you need?
Go back to basics. Before you get caught up in all the hype and detail of all the various product offerings, consider the basic issues you are setting out to solve.
Do you want a database that enables sales agents to capture data easily and prompts them to make a large volume of contact calls with an easy way to record the results? Do you need detailed communication plans? The ability to interface or produce marketing presentations or documents? What about measurement of activity and reporting?
Think carefully about what make the money in your business. In many sales businesses the volume of contacts made by the sales team each day and the notes recorded about those contacts are what makes the money, and yet reporting of individual daily call volumes and which contacts have notes recorded is rarely available in a simple report for the Agent or the Principal.
Look at the WAY your business operates. In the COVID world working structures have changed to have remote access from multiple devices as the norm and the trend towards mobile phone usage is relentless.
Build your business for the future. Evaluate the team you have and how it may interact with your software over the next 5 years. While software changes can be made it is often expensive to make the change AND retrain all the team who use the software. If your newer members of the team are different to the older ones in the way they adopt and ultilize the software , buy to suit them and encourage the older members to adapt with suitable levels of training and support available to them.
Consider also the delineation of duties. In a modern agency efficiency is all about specialisation and the right people doing the jobs they are best suited to. This can include the Sales agents becoming more “people focussed” and having support staff to sweep up after them to create and deliver data reporst manage the database. Centralised communication models etc. Another emerging model element is the globalisation of agency structures with most agencies in our group now having offshore staff doing a multiplicity of tasks that is ever expanding as the world rapidly becomes more digital. Covid has given rise to the normality of online signed documents and less paper so borders and locations are irrelevant.
Service to your clients is yet another aspect. Which programs make you not only look the best but also deliver the best service and experience to your clients. Reviews and referrals are now the norm, so if you can deliver WOW service and experience to your clients they will rave about it. And they don’t care if it was supported by staying up till midnight or a clever piece of software. Conversely they are scathing if you don’t have the system to deliver. Deliver you must. Getting the tools to enable that are just part of modern business.
Once you have gathered your thoughts refer to those of your team as well. Particularly those who will be close to the action.
Your list may take the form of bullet points or a mindmap ( see the cool free tool at https://sourceforge.net/projects/freemind/ ). But creating this list will help you not be side tracked by the glitzy and shiny objects that are portrayed in the features and benefits of software suppliers that may not serve the basic objectives of what you need your software to do and why you are buying it.
