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How to overcome fear when adopting technology for your business: Unorthodox questions to ask
When I started my sales career, whirled through all sales and marketing training but could not find an answer to what comes next, I went to the most successful sales institutions to study their moves, namely pyramid scheme companies, politicians and clergymen.
It became apparent quickly that fear is the most powerful ingredient, relief from fear the best product to sell, and the bliss (or ignorance?) of “no more fear” the ultimate after sales experience.
We are now living in constant distress as status quo ceases to exist. Even without a novel coronavirus nobody is immune to and that’s sweeping the face of the planet, and in a world where there are no easy predictions, we always feel insecure anyway.
With a sense of foreboding dominating the background music, we should be able to sell anything, to anyone, anytime.
The best product to sell, taking the above into consideration, is technology. Travel technology creating breakthroughs, propelling us forward in the past (horses, compass and wheels), present (cars, ships, planes) and future (spaceships) in one word is dangerous, but we excelled in using technology to measure, communicate, read information, get directions, look at the landscape and guide us, giving us consolation from trepidation. Same applies to technology we applied pre, during and post trip, such as social media. So it created and quenched fright at the same time. Perfecto!
In my hunting high and low from startups and incumbents for the best matching travel technology, one thing was always on top of my mind – whether the business caused or solved anxieties?
There are of course two sides to the coin, from the business owners’ perspective, and/or the customer experience angle. The best adoption is not the right balance in this case, as the middle ground is too murky to distinguish the bad from the ugly, it should be a clear landslide win, ideally for both sides.
There is no best technology out there but the technology that best suits you. Reports such as capterra https://www.capterra.com/, software advice https://www.softwareadvice.com/ and hoteltechreport https://hoteltechreport.com/ and relevant rankings and rewards can help provide an overall landscape, which is necessary, but everyone should come up with their own formula how to judge a technology.
Here are some guidelines that can help in the selection process to increase the chance of picking a winner:
1. Set and prioritise goals
The user lead should look at internal and external needs to come up with a clear set of goals the technology should be able to solve. It should always be a painful process of prioritization and eliminating. The drive should never be a single facet, surface level demand, and should have integration and operation difficulties fully appreciated.
2. Form a cross departmental team
Never be a lone ranger when it comes to new technology adoption or upgrade. Technology lead, user lead and financial lead should be involved to cover different angles. All should have clearly defined goals to their independent contribution to the decision making. Recently a growth lead takes the reign of this decision process, but I still recommend including a second or third opinion to cover the growth lead’s blindspot.
3. Sourcing
Besides looking at existing solution providers, you should also consider startups and modifications of similar solutions from other sectors. At least 30% of the time should be used to explore the unusual suspects. As entrants almost always target a weakness of the incumbent, recommend user lead to also get involved to get insights.
4. Selection
Research and endorsement from previous or existing users should be considered. Selecting a list of finalists to give each more time to present, discuss and negotiate is wise. Always include one or two wild cards in the next stage as eliminating other options too early cannot cultivate an open mindset, which for technology adoption is crucial.
5. Meshed up scoring
The rating system should be more complex and not direct scoring where a selected few people give score of what is on their list, and add up to the total. Cross scoring and weighted scoring system aligned to the culture of the company are good practices. Introducing 3rd party expert with relevant experience as a consultant or put in their own score is common practice, especially if it’s a new or highly specialized technology.
6. Last check
Make a list of things that are important but not on anybody’s list and make sure it is being graded, such as willingness of solution providers, ethics and sustainability checks, intrinsic value etc.
7. Contractual stage
It is not only the lawyer’s job to draft a contract, a designated lead person should have the ability to come up with a term sheet that describes well what was discussed and promised by the selected vendor. You can up to this stage, still keep two service providers to compare and use the best leverage. All in all, the system in place should eliminate most human defects, like going for the least expensive, or selecting the most famous service provider, to avoid any accusations if things go awry. The presentation, discussion and negotiation process should take longest and provide most data you need. The following are 10 unorthodox questions I like to ask during this process:
1. Where are people placed in the technology?
We are in a people industry. All good technology has to place both staff and guests in a clear advantage post installation. You should avoid those who cannot spell out a clear picture.
2. Explain to me the data
The importance is not only on cyber security, but how data is being used and treated. If a technology company can only tell you the value of big data, you should have red siren alert all over the place.
3. Can I make it modular?
The best strategy is always to keep options open and go for increment adoption of the full suite of services, if all goes well in the first phase. Companies (on both ends) tend to take too much they can chew.
4. How “flat” is the technology from one end to the other?
Hotel and airlines leverage heavily on offline experience to deliver products, thus the best technology gets as close from collection to the delivery end as possible and remove unnecessary layers in between
5. Any options to leasing or profit/revenue sharing? Acid test to the confidence in the quality of product and the post sell support
6. What kind of upgrade is included or in the road map?
You invest in technology not for the present but the
future. This could be the most important question of all
7. What is the cost of migration?
There are two parts to this question, when you first started and when it ended. No service provider will supply this piece of information self willingly.
8. How much we are allowed to change?
Few reasons to ask this, one is to gauge the willingness of the service provider, but more importantly you want something unique for your establishment and before commitment is the best chance to get what you want.
9. How long it takes to launch?
Although there are a lot of factors influencing final launch date, service provider should always have a timeframe in mind. The project management ability is as important as the product itself.
10. Can I meet the project leader and the core members of the team?
You learn a lot from meeting the team representing the company. Also the worst thing is to meet with a group of amazing sales people from the service provider, but then project is handover to a team of imbeciles.
There is no doubt without adopting technology we won’t stand a chance to serve our customers right, as the customer has high expectations after having first hand experience of all kinds of hardware and software technology innovation in work and play. As it is not an option for us not to change, we need to find a way to conquer our fears and while we are at it, rather boldly go where no man has gone before to make the trip worthwhile.
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• Featured image credit: Chainarong Prasertthai/Getty Images
