Many developers come to Service Objects because they recognize their company has a need for a data quality solution. Maybe you were tasked by a manager to help find a solution, perhaps someone in Marketing mentioned one of their pain points, or maybe you just naturally saw opportunities for improvement. Whatever the reason was that got you looking for a data quality solution, you most likely need to get someone in management to sign off on your solution. Often, especially in larger organizations, this can be a challenge. So how are others accomplishing this?
Service Objects has been in business for over 16 years and in that time frame, we have helped potential customers just like you get sign off for our services. In addition to being armed with information from your Account Executive on how you can achieve ROI for the service you have chosen, the following recommendations are the ones we have found to be the most useful.
Test out our services
If you haven’t already, get a free trial key for the service you are interested in. We allow you to try out as many of our 23 data quality solutions as you would like. My blog, Taking Service Objects for a Test Drive, can help you figure out which method of testing our services is best for you.
One of the values in testing our services is that it reinforces your own understanding of our products. Testing allows you to quickly visualize and show others in your organization the benefits of utilizing a data quality solution. Showing your boss an actual test integration you did with our API is more powerful than just explaining how it works. Or, if you decide to run a test batch with us, you will see first hand how we can improve your contact data.
You can also leverage our quick look up page and set up on a screen share with a larger team and run live examples for them. Let your team choose some data to run live and see the results first hand.
Data summaries
Data summaries are a great visual aid to take a look at how our services help. Take a subset of any of your data sets and send them over for a batch test. Each batch test contains a comprehensive summary, providing you with how we validated your data and what the results mean. Your Account Executive can review this and guide you through the results. Having a detailed report that clearly shows the current state of your data is a great tool to have when you are ready to go forward with any type of presentation to your team. A recent blog shows what one of our reports includes. All data has a story, and with our batch summaries we try to tell that story.
Integration plan
Having an integration plan is an asset when getting sign off for our services. You are bound to get some questions after showing your plan, such as “who?” “how?” and “how long?”. It is a good idea to be prepared to answer these questions.
Integrating with us is not a complicated task and we have several resources to guide you. Our sample code can quickly get you up and running and we can even customize it for your specific use case. We also have best practices available to help you with your integration. For instance, you may need to check if there are any network or firewall issues your IT team needs to complete. If you are switching from another solution or vendor, you may need to have your integration timeline in sync with turning off an old service and turning our service on. And never forget about testing, which is one of the most important parts of any integration. Finally, you may need to account for any training you want to provide to your team about how to work with our data or your new system. Having answers to these questions can help arm you with everything you need to keep the ball rolling.
Customer service and support
Support. It is just one word but it is key. Sometimes even the most important word. You can purchase a top-notch product or service, but if you can’t get adequate customer support when you need it, your purchase loses most of its value to you. With Service Objects, this is never the case. In fact, customer service is one of our core values. We care about your success and truly want you to be succeed. If you want to get buy in from your team, then it is very important to discuss our customer service expertise. Having a dedicated customer support resource, comprised of engineers, will ease your transition to our offerings and in the end, will save your organization significant time and money.
Value proposition
At Service Objects, our value proposition is very clear. Our data quality solutions ensure your data is as genuine, accurate and up-to-date as it can possibly be. A large percentage of our customers have been with us for many years, and this is due to the effort we put into the quality, accuracy, speed, reliability and expertise we deliver.
Getting buy-in from colleagues
It is always helpful to get people on your side when you want to present a new service to your company. Talking it over with colleagues and managers is great and many of the things written in this blog can help get them on your side to support your idea. It also goes a long way in educating your team on the data quality issues you are facing and how a Service Objects’ solution can alleviate many of those problems.
I hope some of these ideas or tips can help you along the way in presenting our services to your team or manager. The last thing you want to do is have a conversation with your boss without adequate preparation. Your ideas are good, so take your time and plan the right action in getting them implemented. In the end, the results our services will provide for your company will be impactful and worth your time.
Visit our product page to Get started testing any of our services.
