In most vendor selections, buyers sit through a demo and have to decide how much of what they hear to believe. A demo covers a lot of ground in a short time, and the people who run it want to win the business.
Consider a demo that goes well. The vendor’s lead answers each question with a yes, and the buyers across the table grow more comfortable with every answer. Near the end, an operations manager asks whether the product can handle a task her team repeats on the fifth of every month. The lead says yes, a little faster than before. She writes the answer down and wonders which of the earlier yeses she should believe.
Buyers can settle that question by judging vendors and fintechs on two things: how honest they are about the product, and how well they support the institution after the contract is signed. We also think buyers should treat the vendor or fintech as a partner. A partner shares the work and the risk with the institution, and the institution still answers for the result.
Two tests that check each other
CarrieAnne Cormier, founder of BankSmart Studio and former COO of IC Credit Union, joined us on Next Best Action, our podcast on how banks and credit unions adapt. She described her best vendors as the ones who tell her where the product falls short, even when the product is not the strongest. “Some of my best vendors haven’t always been the ones whose product performs the best. But they’ll tell me what the deficits are.” She values that candor enough to give up some technology for it. “I’m willing to be more lenient on the technology if I know we can get to the end result together.”
Jay Tkachuk, a digital banking leader with 18 years of experience, knows that salespeople can be great at “smoke and mirrors and telling you what you want to hear,” so he checks. “You have to apply critical thinking, look under the hood, talk to their other clients, and do your research to truly understand whether this is what you are looking for.” When the check fails, he tells buyers to be decisive and “say no thank you and move on to find something else.”
We see the two practices as one. A vendor who names its gaps up front gives the buyer something to verify, and Jay’s conversations with existing clients let the buyer confirm what the vendor said. Buyers who score vendors by counting yeses give no credit to an honest answer of not yet.
Trust runs both ways
CarrieAnne and Jay describe what a buyer does before signing. Chris Rigoni describes what happens once the relationship is running.
Chris, EVP and Head of Partner Banking and Payments at Axiom Bank, works with a different kind of partner. Axiom is a sponsor bank for fintech brands. Many of our readers buy from vendors instead, and his lesson applies on either side of the arrangement. Chris put the dependence plainly: “if the bank gets in trouble, so does the fintech. They can’t do business if the bank gets in trouble.” An institution that buys from a vendor depends on that vendor in the same way, so both sides have reason to be honest with each other.
Chris described the attitude his bank takes when a fintech asks for something that carries risk. “I’m not going to be the no person, but I am going to work with you to figure out how to mitigate the risks you probably don’t see.” He also named what keeps an arrangement working overtime. “Those expectations being clear, and both sides holding up their end, creates a successful partnership.” Whichever side is the client, each side tells the other what it expects and what it cannot do, and each side does its part.
“Those expectations being clear, and both sides holding up their end, creates a successful partnership.” Chris Rigoni, EVP and Head of Partner Banking and Payments, Axiom Bank
After launch
Scott Hurlbert, SVP of Digital Channels at Provident Bank, spoke about the work that begins once an institution has bought a product.
“Have a strategy about how you’re going to make it your own and continue to take care of it. That requires people to mind the store; it’s not a “check the box, bought the product, plugged it in” situation.”
A partner shares the work and the risk with the institution. The institution still answers for the result, because the people it serves hold the institution responsible, whoever built the product.
Two questions to ask this week
Buyers can take two questions from these guests into their next meeting with a vendor. The first comes from CarrieAnne’s experience: ask what the product does not do yet. The second comes from Jay: ask to speak with clients who use the product today. A vendor who welcomes both questions has shown the buyer something the buyer would not learn from the demo alone.
We hold ourselves to the same test. Finalytics personalizes digital experiences and does not personalize in-person ones. We are glad to show how the platform works and to introduce institutions to our clients, which is Jay’s advice applied to us.
When an institution signs, the selection ends and the partnership begins. Both sides handle the first hard conversation after a signature more easily when they stated before signing what the product can and cannot do. Buyers who want that ease can ask for it in the first meeting.
