When I engage with a new potential customer, I’m sometimes asked some really great questions that (I’ll be honest) make me a little hot under the collar! But it’s important that these questions are asked.
You need to treat your initial meetings with any potential printing or converting MIS supplier like you would an interview with a human being. Your Management Information System is like an employee, so you should be including it in your organizational charts and carrying out annual reviews like you would each year with staff.
To give you an idea of what you could be asking, I’ve compiled a list of what I think have been some of the best questions I’ve been asked over the years. Some of these may be more relevant than others, depending whether you opt for a desktop solution or a cloud-based solution.
- What do you do better than the competition?
- What can you offer us that others can’t?
- What are your weaknesses?
- What do the competition do better than you?
- How will you support us during the implementation phase? And going forward after go-live? (applicable for desktop)
- Give me an example of when an implementation project went wrong? What contributed to this? (applicable for desktop)
- What would your expectations be of us during the implementation phase? And going forward after go-live? (applicable for desktop)
- What would your employees say about working at <Insert MIS provider>
- What do you do to look after your employees and make sure they’re happy?
- What is your employee retention rate?
- What do you do to go the extra mile for your customers?
- What is your NPS score?
- Can you tell us about a negative experience you’ve had with a customer and what was the outcome?
- What is your customer retention rate? So how many customers do you lose a year? And why do they typically leave?
- If we asked your best customer what they think about your organization, what do you think they’d say?
- If we asked your worst customer what they think about your organization, what do you think they’d say?
- Have you ever had to end a relationship with a customer and if so why?
- How do you make sure you are constantly innovating and adapting to new technologies/processes?
- Who would look after us if we became a customer – who would be our main point of contact?
- Would we be in regular contact with yourself?
- What is your approach to integration? What integrations are available? How do you deal with new requests for integrations?
- What do you think we’ve not thought about or over looked?
When investing in a new MIS for your printing or converting business, it’s a good idea to build up a relationship with your supplier. Being open, asking questions and understanding each other from the beginning helps to avoid misunderstandings later down the line. It also helps you evaluate whether you would work well together based on whether their answers align with what you look for in a software partner. You’ll be working closely with them, so it’s very important that you share the same outlook on the project and the same end goal.
If you 'd like to know our answers to these questions, then get in touch!
