Stuff is going digital. What you currently do manually can probably be done automatically with a little help from someone like me. But how do you choose the right program to offload your manual workload and properly 'go digital'?
You're not looking for a good solution; they're all good. You're not looking for the best solution; they'll all tell you they're the best. You're looking for the solution that satisfies your unique need. I recently set out to find an online tithing solution for a church. As these things go, there's a lot of factors at play and one very effective sales tactic is to blind you with the good things. Keep your mind focused on the goal at hand. The one rub that you need satisfied above all else. Then let everything else fall in line as you do your search. My goal was to find software that was easily exportable to QuickBooks and separated every individual donation category to make things very simple for an older accountant. This specific goal keeps me focused on the one thing that sets that one solution apart from the others, despite what shines with the competitors.
The most important part of any transaction is the first INTERACTION. It determines if you're coming back to this place or not. When you take the first plunge on a digital solution, you're taking a gamble on this company. You have to know that someone is going to be there with you no matter what happens, you've got someone to guide you through the changes. The thing about these companies is that they're all young, they're all wildly innovative (or they'd like you to think they are) and many times, constantly updating and upgrading.
They're growing.
You want to know that through your mutual growth journey, your relationship isn't going to be negatively affected by a lack of communication.
Which brings me to my next point, the business practice. These businesses grow and pop and such is the nature of small business. What you're looking for is a business that genuinely cares about both their client and their service. This quality of care shines through the customer service and into the minute details of the service. Test the product out, make sure that your specific need is met first, and then take an account of the other details and polishes they've added to make the experience easier, or lack thereof. This + the quality of customer service shows you a business that's either moving forward, or has plateaued and isn't going to be able to keep up with the changing technological landscape.
This is about the experience. The experience can fill us with a lotta feels about how easy and breezy everything was....Its monumentally important here to keep your eyes focused on the goal at hand. I've seen many examples of companies that go full into creating incredible experiences to mask the fact that the backend is severely lacking of needful features...but the interface is sooooo sleek and the colors soooo pretty. But the experience is incredibly important nonetheless. Just make sure the great experience is from a company that's passionate about their product and satisfies your need. If it's too pretty, talk to customer service. I've had to do this many many times; being a designer a good design gives me hope in the product's success and after talking to customer service, I realized there just wasn't any hope. Many times, my feature just wasn't on the feature roadmap any time soon and I was hoping in pretty colors.
The maturity of the business is actually super important. Because of the nature of this recent digital transition, most of these businesses are very young. Most startups die within the first 2 years. So you're taking a serious gamble on a really innovative service or product that just popped up. Even if the service doesn't just simply die, it may get swallowed up by one of these larger companies and everything you loved about it is now gone because larger companies work MUCH differently. It's like a really great new taco truck that you've grown to love getting bought up by Taco Bell. The truck keeps its name and the taco truck identity, but the suppliers change, the toppings change, the truck is now full of Taco Bell type advertisements, the hours change, new employees show up. Expanded hours and mainstream unimpassioned menu choices sap the old identity of nearly all its old vigor and the place becomes a Taco Bell on wheels.
This happens a lot.
There's a bright side to this. Many of these Silicon Valley startups start out backed by larger companies and pretty much stay small and profitable. They keep their teams small, their methods passionate and their eyes fixed on the prize and they become great services. Think about how MailChimp does things...they're kinda big because they're tops, but from the outside, they seem pretty small and VERY passionate about email. They keep a lot of email specific services free and their customer service is quite awesome. As they mature, they're able to develop their own identity from the roots of something as simple as a single service and what was awesome....just becomes more awesome.
Now compile all this and do a quick woooooo-saaaaaah. How does it all feel. The right company fills you with confidence like a good partner. Any problem you might face in the future can be overcome with simple communication and every month's subscription feels good. You can build forward on this partnership.
Let's say you're working on "what ifs" right now. For example, I had a client that wanted something that could allow his employees to trade shifts at the last minute if need be and the site would reflect their schedule changes live. His whatif was "what if the site could do this automatically"?This is where someone like me steps in, but the key is finding a system that juggles the above qualities with that of a superior API. We were able to find a system that makes the experience seamless and pretty amazing as this is a very common issue that we were exploring, however, the key was in finding an application with a superior API behind it. The API, or Application Programming Interface is the thing that allows me to securely pull all the information from your account with a script on the website. It also gives the system itself the ability to exist in apps, text, email, a website, plugins and more stuff. An API is like the cables that carry your cable signal throughout the city. All you have to do is plugin to feed and you're directly connected back to the plant's signal and able to access all the channels and services (as long as you have the proper login).
So now my client's "whatif" is turned into a "mission accomplished" and not only are we serving his employees in high fashion but also his client base. That's the power of moving forward.
