Good Vendors will know who you are and what you need help with before they try to sell their offerings.
Sharing some tips for sellers in the crowd…
1) Knowing you
Before anyone talks business, the discovery process (cold business jargon for getting to know you) should reveal tons of information about your district, and why not?
The information age means that we freely share details about our lives through social media, websites, posts, and more. Doing your due diligence before picking up the phone to talk or email sends an additional, more subtle message: I care about your work.
2) Respect your time
Even though your edtech is simply the best, and they are so excited to talk to you, knowing the right time, place, and environment for a chat or update call is important. Similarly, setting and maintaining meeting plans shows respect for the busy schedules of school administrators and product champions. If meetings are consistently missed or start late (even due to technical difficulties), it’s a red flag that your district is nothing more than a number.
On the other hand, when an urgent problem arises, how do you handle the need for support? If automated voices scramble your calls (or worse, mysteriously drop the line and start the process all over again), know you deserve better.
3) Listen with empathy
Quick Quiz: Would you rather speak with a company representative who listened to understand or listened to argue? Listening with empathy means that edtech professionals put themselves in their shoes, the users who are in the software performing tasks on a daily basis. Top UX professionals will agree: real, raw user feedback is invaluable.
The best way to get honest UX feedback is to listen without interrupting, correcting, or interfering in any way. Empathy in essence means honoring another person’s experience. An edtech provider worth investing in in the long term will make you feel heard, take diligent notes, and sincerely focus on helping to solve the problem.
4) Request User Success Stories
Edtech providers find purpose in helping users improve their daily processes; telling those stories should be a priority. What better way to demonstrate effectiveness than to show it to power users?
But these success stories walk a fine line between showing off edtech and showing off user results. The best stories err on the credit of people, and not necessarily the software.
5) Find out what they can do to improve
The best time to improve is when you are already doing well. All customer communication, feedback, and improvement requests give listening providers a clear roadmap of where to grow.
Of course, edtech providers have the option to move in either direction. But once a partnership is established between user and provider, meeting user needs and priorities provides a shared path to success.
And an added bonus from me (KW): NEVER, EVER send a “cold” calendar invite! There are few vendor behaviors I find more off-putting than invading my calendar with an invite from a vendor I’ve never spoken to. That’s an instant hit for me.
