Beginning a software search? Here are a few tips to help you organize your search get the best product for your business. - Be Prepared To Pay a Fair Market Price
- Determine why you want to make a purchase
- Assess the time that you spend on business tasks
- Determine What features you will NOT need
- Consider your Computer Skills and the cost of support
- Don't get a basic referral, obtain a DETAILED referral
- Give the Product a Good Overview
- Purchase from a company that is willing to create custom modifications or reports for you
- Purchase a system which has a utility to export data
- Evaluate the Customer Service of the company
Don't expect the software that runs the intricacies of your business to be delivered free of charge. In order to deliver a high quality product with great customer service, a software company must earn revenue. A company may employ designers, developers, testers, support people the list goes on and on.
If you want great software to run your business from a company with qualified staff to assist you when you have questions, you will need to do your research and pay a fair market price. Prices will vary based on the complexity of the product, the number of features, the size of your business or services bundled. Prices can range anywhere from 200$ to 9000$ depending on what you need. A more expensive product doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a better product for your business.
For example: A Rolls Royce, A Hummer, A Ford Explorer and a Toyota Camry are at different price breaks, yet they are all cars. They all require gas, have 4 wheels and can have mechanical difficulty. Shopping for software is not unlike shopping for a car. You want to know what you need, before you start looking. You will find many varieties but your goal is to find the best fit for your business needs.
Think about it. Before you buy a car, you have evaluated why you need one and what you expect to gain by having one. Do the same research prior to making a software purchase for your studio business. Do the following exercises to organize your thoughts: *Make a List of the problems you hope to resolve by purchasing a software product. Order these from highest to lowest on what MUST be resolved, versus what would be nice to resolve. Separate the MUST haves from the nice-to haves. *Make a list of features you would like to see in a new product. Order these from highest to lowest on what MUST be included, versus what would be nice feature to have. Separate the MUST haves from the nice-to haves.
Remember that you will likely not find one product that resolves all of your issues or includes all features you desire, but your goal is to find the best fit possible for the budget you have available. Be sure to list any additional charges you will encounter to have the features you want. You can use this to evaluate pricing later. One common mistake for novices is attempting to find one software package that serves your every need, regardless of the fact that those needs are very different. Your dream of a product that stores recipes, counts your carbs, creates greeting cards, balances your checkbook, and performs any task related to your dance business will surely be unfulfilled. Be prepared to decide which elements of the dream are most important. A system that attempts to fulfill all of your needs no matter how unrelated, will likely fall short on some. Find out if there is the ability to use "best of the best" functionality. What does this mean? It means, it's ok if your dream product doesn't perform every task you need so long as your dream company can recommend a compatible tool or business process to use in addition. For example: Apple's iTunes mp3 software is a free tool available now for about 3 years. It clearly is a good tool for building mp3 lists. Paying for a modification to your studio software so that it builds mp3 lists, is not the best use of your software budget.
Assess the time that you spend a daily, weekly, monthly or yearly on business tasks that you want resolved by a software tool Look at the list you created and note how much time you spend performing the tasks. Items that require a lot of time should be prioritized high on your list so that you can purchase a product that will cut your workload. Be sure you make sure that items ranked high are available in the software and have as much flexibility as possible. For Example: In the list below,42 hours a month is spent entering invoices. This is 504 hours yearly. Therefore, this person should make it a top priority to find a system that can do some automated billing. This feature alone could allow for less need to employ support staff for long hours. Also, in the example below, only 1 hour a year is spent generating perfect attendance certificates. Therefore, the ability to print perfect attendance certificates would be cool to have, but not as important. If that feature is an expensive price jump, it's likely not worth the price.
| Business Task | Time Spent Daily | Time Spent Weekly | Time spent Monthly | Time spent yearly | | Invoice entry | 1.5 hours | 10.5 hours | 42 hours | 504 hours | | applying Payments | 1 hours | 7 hours | 30 hours | 360 hours | | Perfect Attendance Reporting | 0 hour | 0 hour | 0 hour | 1 hour | Determine what features you will NOT need from a product Think about what services or features you do not expect to need. If your brother-in-law is a CPA and he does your taxes every year for free and you love the way he does them, you may not need a product that comes bundled with Tax Processing. If you work out of a recreation center and you know you are not going to have a store or inventory, you will not need a product that comes bundled with a Point of Sale system or inventory system. (Point of Sale is the software that runs Cash Registers) Again, relate this to a car buying experience. Parents who are shopping for a car for their teenager are likely looking for a small, gas efficient vehicle without a lot of bells and whistles. They are not looking for a luxury car with heated seats and satellite television. When software products can jump in price considerably as additional functionality is added, be sure you need and will use the functionality you are paying for. Don’t by a Cadillac if what you need is a YUGO.
Be careful here. It is so easy to fall victim to up selling. I write this with my head hanging low, knowing that I paid 150$ more for a cell phone because it had the unique ability to take pictures. Over a year later I know that I have used the phone quite a lot for making calls but I have only taken 3 pictures on it. (And those were to decorate the phone) I should have not allowed myself to be upsold but at the time that feature sounded so cool. Had I been prepared with a list, I would still have my 150 bucks.
If you are a true computer geek and are good at following manuals and doing your own research, you may be able to purchase a product that comes with short term support and save a lot of money. However, if the sight of a computer monitor makes you nauseated, you have no idea what a ‘backup’ is , and you are way too busy to read a manual, be sure you find out the cost of phone and email support before making your purchase. The cost of support can be a money pit for the inexperienced customer. A portion of your software expense is the maintenance and support of the product. Even if the company tells you support is free, you can bet they have added the cost of support into the price of the product. This means that all software prices are impacted by the level of support you will require. Support has 3 categories: Phone, email and maintenance. Many companies will offer a certain amount of free phone support or email support. Be sure to find out how much additional support will cost if your support can run out. If your expectation is a phone line that is open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, you will likely pay a higher price for the product or the support. After all, those phone lines don’t get staffed for free. The maintenance agreement is similar to the extended warranty on your car. Most companies offer limited warranties on software. If you plan to be a long term customer, you may want to inquire about a maintenance agreement so that you can receive all the most current enhancements and fixes as they come available. These usually come bundled with free support so it's a great way to ensure your support cost is capped. When comparing products, create a column for phone support, email support and maintenance agreement. Write in each column, how much is free, and the cost for additional time or services. You should also determine how defect corrections are handled. If a maintenance agreement is offered, find out what benefits you receive by purchasing one. Find out what types of documentation come with the product. Is there a user’s manual? Is there also a Quick Start Guide? Is there a Newsletter? Is there a frequently asked questions document or support webpage? The more the company does to allow you to find information off the clock, the less likely you will need to call them and the more convenient it will be for you to use the product without buying more support. Dance Finance Software is a software company that provides all of the above while at the same time offering free email support. Tips: You would be surprised to find there are products out there that come with absolutely no manuals. The companies actually expect you to call them to learn how to run the system. Run from these companies as fast as you can! Be prepared to be a responsible user. If you have no time to read the manual, you don't like reviewing or following instructions, and you don't do well with computers, be proactive and hire a book keeper or front office assistant. Even the best software is only as good as the information you put into it and the manner in which you operate it.
Getting the opinion of a prior customer of the company or a current customer of the company is a good idea but make it detailed. If a customer says “I love it!" ask them why they love it and what specific features they are using.
If your business has 300 students and the person giving the positive feedback has 50, my guess is that you may have some needs in your business that are not experienced in smaller businesses. Be specific. Ask about the features most important to you. Ask about the quality of customer service.
Likewise, if a client says they had a horrible experience, find out why. Was the person a responsible user? You may find the “I hate it" response comes from a user who never did a backup and had their hard drive crash. Find out what area of the product or service dissatisfied them and what version or release they used. The feedback may still be accurate or it may be only accurate for specific releases. Be sure to query the company and get a demonstration of any outstanding concerns you may have.
Don't fall victim to glowing reviews in chat rooms or message boards. Chat rooms can be misleading areas to get advice. There is no way to determine in a chat room on the internet if the review is true or if the person posting is affiliated with the company, or getting paid for their referrals. Do your research, if you don't your money will be wasted. Do the following 3 steps to ensure you have a good overview of the product and you know what you are buying: Be sure to demo the product. Most companies will allow you to download a demo version with demo data or use a trial release. Never buy a product you have not run via demo. Also, be sure that anyone else in your organization that will use the product also gets a demo. Two heads are better than one! If all the staff involved demo the product from their perspective, you won't have any surprises. Also, the demo can be a mini-training session and will better prepare your staff for the new system. Download and preview any presentation overviews of the product. Many companies will provide a product overview presentation that highlights features of the product. Don’t fool yourself into thinking that using a demo is enough. If you have never used the product before, a presentation will give you a complete feel of the long term benefits of using the product. Using a product is more involved than opening a demo, adding a student and entering an invoice. Be sure you review presentations and ask questions so that you can get a full picture of the product .
Request a technical Sales Consultation. Allow your software provider to find out more about the way you run your business. Allow them to demonstrate how the product can fulfill your needs. Software is a key business where the salesperson can help you to determine if the product meets your needs.
Every business is different. Although most companies put various options in their product, there is sure to be a unique need you have in your business that others don’t have. Be sure to purchase from a company that can provide you with custom functionality or reports if you need it. If you think you will need customizations, find out the company’s rates and policies on these. Many companies will provide a few hours of customizations at no cost and charge a fair price for the balance. Having the ability to export data prevents you from being handcuffed to a single company. If for any reason the company discontinues the product or perhaps you just need to export the files to a book keeper to run reports against, you don’t want to have to pay a fee to extract your data. Although not all companies charge, there are some that will charge extra to export data. This means that should you decide to take your student files and run a local system instead, you will need to pay them to extract your data so that you can import it into your new product. This is what some call “golden" handcuffs. It will cost you a golden price to do away with their service. Be sure to ask companies before you purchase so you don’t get burned. Dance Finance Software is a produces a software product that provides a complimentary export utility at no additional charge. I can’t stress this enough. Take note of the Customer Service you get from any presales questions you have. Is the company quick to respond and easy to deal with? Are you able to get your questions answered in a manner that you understand? Does the company appear to be flexible when providing you service? A company that is a pain to deal with during the presales process will be an even bigger pain when you have purchased the product and the honeymoon is over. You can buy the most feature rich product you want, but if the support is crappy and unreliable, you would be better off buying an expensive paperweight. |
