Are you doing it right? Are you getting the data you really need to make this critical buying decision?
Or are you talking to one of the vendor's own employees who is just pretending to be a happy customer?
Sound far-fetched? I actually know of software companies (one of our competitors, in fact) that are guilty of this kind of scam. The Internet often allows companies to appear bigger and more successful than they actually are. Professional looking websites can be created quickly and easily and are not necessarily evidence that a company has been in business very long.
The purpose of checking references bears repeating — you need to verify that your vendor has successful rollouts, not just shelfware. You need to be sure that they have helped customers like you — of your size, in your region, and in your industry. If they have a customer similar to you in your city that you can meet face-to-face, that's the perfect reference. Face it, if the potential vendor you're investigating is willing to lie to you about references, then there is no reason to trust their honesty about anything else they're saying either.
What steps can you take to ensure that you'll be learning what you need to learn about the entity you're checking up on? How can you know the reference they've given you is real — not somebody's mother?
Well, it's time to don your detective hat and investigate these references!
8 Simple Steps to Confirm Reference Validity
- First of all, if the reference calls you, be suspicious. Who has time for that? Tell him you are unavailable at the moment and schedule a time to call him back when he's at his desk at his company.
- Have your potential vendors supply you with a full name, title, company phone number, and email address for all of the references that you will be
contacting — at least three per vendor. Do not settle for Hotmail, Gmail, or Yahoo email addresses, or other temporary email addresses not indicative of a real company.
- This may sound obvious, but you actually have to call all the references and talk to them. Most people never do this. It takes time and it is work, but you may be averting wasted money, time, and effort for your company.
- Google search to ensure that the reference company is real. Does it match the Internet domain name of the email address given to you by your potential vendor? For example, if the reference company's name is "Altman Architecture" and the email address is bryan@altmanarchitecture.com, then go search on Google for that company name and see if www.altmanarchitecture.com is one of the top results you come up with.
- Check the company website for business model appropriateness. Is this reference company similar to your business? For example, software used by restaurants may not be appropriate for your management consultancy. Are you a company that mostly sells to other businesses? Or do you sell directly to consumers? Does your company handle many transactions and customers per year or just a few? The references that the vendor provided you should be as much like you as possible.
- Call the reference company's main number, not the direct number of the person you were given. Is this a real company with a real voice/phone system? Is there an automated company directory? When possible, get a receptionist to confirm that the reference executive works there. Tell them why you're calling: do they know who else might help in this matter? Verify that the reference executive is actually an employee at this company.
- Leave voicemail and also send email. Follow up your calls with a thank you email to the address given to you by your potential vendor.
- If you have any suspicions that the company isn't real, use nikkelhost.com/whois/whois.php to see how long their domain name has been around and who created it. You can also match up locales to area codes on Wikipedia at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_NANP_area_codes in order to ensure that your reference is really where he says he is.
you — reference, vendor, and your company — properly communicate. And it will probably convince you that you're talking to a real, satisfied customer, not a plant.
Any company can have one or two reference customers that are "friends of the
family" — business owners that are local and known to the company or otherwise too close to be objective about the performance of the vendor. This is why insisting on references in your location or industry is important, and why you need several to check up on.
If you follow these steps, you won't be hoodwinked by an unscrupulous vendor, and you'll be much more likely to get a software solution in place that will lead your company to greater business success.
And that's a legacy we'd all like to reference.
About the Author
Curt Finch is the CEO of Journyx, a provider of web-based software located in Austin, Texas, that tracks time and project accounting solutions to guide customers to per-person, per-project profitability. Journyx has thousands of customers worldwide and is the first and only company to establish Per Person/Per Project Profitability (P5), a proprietary process that enables customers to gather and analyze information to discover profit opportunities. In 1997, Curt created the world's first Internet-based timesheet application — the foundation for the current Journyx product offering. Curt is an avid speaker and author, and recently published All Your Money Won't Another Minute Buy: Valuing Time as a Business Resource.
