What do you do if your Enterprise Software vendor and customer are in conflict?

A conflict means your customer is actually telling you what they need rather than shutting you out. That is a good thing. It is an opportunity to resolve the conflict. And I believe products and solutions need to meet the outcomes the customer needs. And most important, leave your ego at home!

Firstly, too much popular business advice focuses on how to WIN customers, not to KEEP them. In my experience, the best companies take both of these equally as seriously. Conflict suggests the situation has already gone too far, and emotions are involved. At this point you need to throw formal process out of the window, and quickly get back onto a human level with your customer. Book a 121 and listen, empathise, understand. Don't try to defend. You'll only be able to move past the issue once you've cleared the air, understood their position and come up with a rational, step by step process to resolve.

Ensure that you review both sides of the issue with many different lenses. -Cost impacts -Value impacts -Ease of use -Workarounds -Short term impact and solutions -Long term impact and solutions Deep dive into the product offering, roadmap, perspective, and have a really solid understanding, then really ensure you listen to your client, and follow up questions, get to the root of the problem from many perspectives. Then once the customer is sure that you understand them, start working through all options and consequences from a short term and long term perspective to help decide on a solution no matter how good or bad it is. Any solution and moving forward is better than resting in limbo. This usually ends well. No fear, just work.

I strongly believe that we need to put the needs of the customer first and work backwards from there. Conflicts generally arise from the vendor not fully understanding the customer's needs. Therefore, it's crucial to dissect the process that led to this misalignment and identify areas we can refine to prevent similar issues in the future. As for the current situation, there are no shortcuts, and the customer needs have to be met. A joint meeting to walk through the gaps and remediation steps needed should be worked out, and plan developed to address the gaps. The situation has to be dealt with somewhat clinically, without letting emotions rule the decision making.

Understand the issue at hand and with SME do a quick RCA. At time the needs of customer define the new feature which enhances the product features. Customer needs are what we are trying to address by the COTS solution, if there are gaps then we should look at the requirements matrix and product evaluation. Check vendor product roadmap if new features cover the gap. In my experience custom implementations are good solution for extending the cots solution but with limitations on the software upgrade these implementations again need efforts and testing before rollout

Broker discussions to resolve. Find misunderstandings due to word choices, lack of tracking, goal mismatch. Implement discussions to resolve current situation, and then identify tools and processes to prevent future mishaps and maintain good relations.

A very good method is to have the 2 parties sit together and get to the the root of the disconnect. This could be differences in IT strategic direction, new IT mgmt changes, directional change by the enterprise software company, etc. It would be best to take a current and future state assessment and set a roadmap that both parties can agree upon. When there is agreement, some immediate changes/low hanging fruit should be implemented to start the roadmap journey. On-going mgmt checkpoints should be established so communication is ongoing reducing the chance of disconnect.

The one thing that I always found helpful is to make sure you completely understand the issue through a detailed conversation with your customer. This also means you have to understand their goals for the software platform. Often times they are trying to achieve something that can be accomplished in a different way, like through configuration, workflows, etc. Other times, they are trying to achieve something that the software was never designed to do. So, understanding the goals they are trying to achieve will help you get to a solution to achieve those goals much faster than just trying to resolve the conflict itself.

Initially, I would address the concern with the customer. It's helpful to understand the nature of the concern because that informs the path to resolution. Most issues can be resolved. In the rare case where there is an irreconcilable conflict, then both parties may need to go their separate directions. When resolving the issue, customer service is key. Honest, regular communication will build trust and ensure someone is taking ownership of the solution.

Establishing an open dialogue between the parties is crucial. Take the lead and become the mediator to facilitate the conversation. It's vital that both sides feel heard and understood. Keep it constructive, focusing on the problem.

I found that most issues can be resolved, or at least progress to resolution, when the parties are having an honest and open dialogue

Engage key stakeholders on both sides and remain laser focussed on identifying key issues and solutions to those. Every meeting has to be focussed on moving forward in terms of a win-win solution.

First of all, this is not an uncommon situation. One thing I've seen worked is, to approach the challenge without emotions taking over. Vendor has the duty to listen to a customer no matter, they are right or not especially when the customer is not satisfied. If and when the vendor listens openly without prejudice and starts a constructive discussion with the customer, the conflict subsides considerably. From the customer perspective, they have to clearly articulate (again without emotions taking over) on the reasons behind their disappointment and put the facts straight on what was the expectation, what was agreed and the gap between delivery and expectation. If a conflict is approached in the above manner - it will be a win-win.

Most of the time, communication is key to resolving all such issues. Be an active listener and ensure you validate what you hear. Then you are on the path to resolution.

Like in any relationship, communication is the most important key to healthy interactions. Understanding the other side’s perspective and having a candid and open line of communication will pave the way to deeper understanding. Listen, listen, and listen some more. Then, think before you talk! My $0.02.

There is an old saying that goes, “never bite the hand that feeds you” and another that goes, “the customer may not always be right, but they are the customer!” I said all of that to say this. The reason that you exist is because of your customer base. This is where your conflict resolution skills come into play. If you find yourself in an en passé between the customer and the vendor then it is always a wise thing to default to the customer. Seek common ground if at all possible but always satisfy the customer.

In both my personal and professional life, I emphasize taking ownership of challenges. When facing issues, whether with relationships or projects, I first seek to understand the frustrations I'm present to by stepping back and reflecting. If that's difficult, I focus on aligning the situation with my goals or values to pull me away from focusing on problems. Professionally, before engaging with a software vendor, I would ensure I understand the customer's desired outcomes—their "Why." This approach brings clarity that not only fosters effective and meaningful discussions with vendors but also leads to better outcomes. More importantly, it helps avoid the turmoil that can arise when the focus starts off on the problems instead of the goals.

In my experience, ideation is the key here. Any idea is good and should not be discounted. Then prioritise these ideas from most important to nice to haves. Could be as simple as a software upgrade, or license agreement uplift or as complex as software development that may be more costly and complex to navigate. Look at the value benefit of each of the ideas as to determine which ones hold the most benefit to both parties.

Technological solutions must take into account their respective tactical execution viability including the solution’s speed to market.

It is key to understand both needs as well as understandings of the situation, then the three parties together will find the best alternatives and in a teaming scope define and execute the final solution to the issues.

Remember that either can be a mistake from your side, or from the customer side. If you are focusing in your customer feedback and empowering customer centricity, you should focus on skills like: - ability to carefully listen your customer with focus on future solutions, not past fightbacks and excuses. - what can be done or said differently? Sometimes we just need to reset actual communication and start over using a different thought process. - real actions and dates for completion - measure progress and keep stakeholders informed

Figure out what is the ideal future state they want and why you both got here to begin with. Leading with humility and admitting you were wrong and remedying the situation should also be true.

This is obviously going to be a bit more project specific, but the most important thing is to keep everyone from editing out ideas at this point in the conversation. Dual benefit here is that I’ve had rocky projects early in implementation, and after something productive like this it ends up being highly collaborative and hence successful.

Both parties should work collaboratively to come up with solutions that are acceptable to everyone involved. This might include compromises or new approaches to the problem.

I’ve run into this multiple times in my career and in all cases it was simply a matter of sitting down with my customer first and understanding what they were trying to accomplish and having my technical staff to ensure there was compatibility between what they needed and our vendor. Then we would go back to our vendor to see if they could integrated our proposed solution. If that could not be accomplished we would need to utilize another vendor for that specific customer.

Once you grasp the problem, working together is crucial for finding an answer. Share ideas with both parties to tackle main issues without neglecting business goals. Look into options like changing contracts, providing training, or updating software. The objective is to reach a solution where everyone wins, maintaining the business bond and meeting both sides' needs.

This is the difficult part, actually making the adjustments. This is where you will be judged on your success however and it is important that you put the effort into completing the adjustments.

Once you have agreed on a solution, make sure to put it into action quickly. This might involve making new agreements, setting up software updates, or getting extra support in place. It is crucial to communicate clearly so that both sides know how the changes will affect their business. Acting promptly shows your commitment to fixing the problem and can help rebuild trust between the parties in conflict.

If the solution proposal from step 3 is a good one (it's your job to evaluate that and then own the solution), it shouldn't be hard to implement it. Maintain high solution quality, delivery deadline, and the budget. That's the tough part, which contains your reward of being a sought after consultant.

Evaluate any technical issues or limitations within the software that may have led to dissatisfaction or disputes from the customer's perspective. Understanding these technical aspects is crucial for finding solutions.

In my opinion these changes can be incremental to allow for testing, learning and changing things where needed. Any change will require proper testing, change management, communication and agreement that outcomes have been met. By keeping communications and issues logs open and frequent, the customer won't feel things are done to them instead of with them and the vendor won't feel the customer is taking advantage of them. Ongoing dialogue to address further changes and impacts is also important as well as agreement on how to address these issues in future, perhaps via monthly meetings or regular forums with the vendor.

While time is of essence, rushing into implementing the solution should be avoided. With all the insights that came out of doing the RCA - root cause analysis - why we all reached in the first place, take time to think through the dependencies is critical. Any action items without a timeline and a person assigned to it is only a wishlist. Assigning the right person(s) to implement the new solution is essential.

Depending on the project, the cadence for these check-in meetings will vary. It’s important for anyone managing a situation like this to pay close attention to details and be experts on their customers/client to know how mission critical a technical hangup may be and be able to guide them through to resolution.

As a consultant, caught between an unhappy end user client and software vendor, I usually try to understand both parties concerns. Issues to discuss are existing contracts and expectations, specific problems that have risen and possible solutions, beneficial to both sides. It is important to monitor the discussion, document decisions and progress and aim for a common ground to avoid possible future conflicts.

This should actually be done throughout the whole project lifetime on all key performance indicators, regardless of whether there are any issues or not. This way, you can measure and prove the project/solution effectiveness.

Where possible, incremental changes allow for minimum viable resolution with low impacts and continuous dialogue and agreement on what to do next. Also easier to roll back and try a different way - depending on the change of course. Ongoing communication and issues logs with agreed actions and owners will go a long way.

Drawing on my experience as the Director of Proceti, I've learned that 'what gets measured, gets improved.' That's why closely monitoring progress is so crucial. Keeping a close eye on how things are evolving allows us to make timely course corrections, address challenges, and amplify what's working well. By staying on top of the latest developments, we can make informed decisions and ensure that every step brings us closer to our goals. Remember, the key is to measure in order to grow! 📊💡

The industry is small in the Australia and New Zealand region compared to the rest of the world but good relationships is important no matter the outcome. There will be times when things dont go to plan but it important to have integrity and empathy for others.

Conflicts happen all the time. It's most important how we handle them and whether all parties are focused on using it as an opportunity to improve the overall collaboration through effective problem-solving and maintain a positive relationship. Ensure constant communication, offer continual assistance, and aim for perpetual enhancement in your collaborations. Through these efforts, you can transform a difficult scenario into an opportunity that nurtures allegiance and confidence.

If solving the problem is a success, make sure the people affected by the original problem know how it was handled. If it was done well, they'll appreciate you more afterward than if there had been no problem in the first place. People expect things to work; they don't always expect great help so furnishing it is a builder of trust.

Absolutely! Early in my career, I felt nervous/scared when situations like this inevitably arise. I took things at face value seeing only conflict. It took going through these types of situations and scenarios a few times to understand the shear amount of trust and goodwill can be created when a leader is able to successfully overcome issues and go-live with the project.

Find out what the main challenges the vendor and the customer are having. Find out from both entities how it would change things if both of them received what they are looking for; quickly, profitably & systematically... Explain to them exactly what they need to do to fix their challenges.

Ultimately, make fostering a positive relationship between your software vendor and customer a top priority. See conflicts as opportunities to strengthen connections through solving problems. Maintain open communication, provide ongoing support, and strive for continuous improvement in your partnerships. This approach can turn challenges into chances to build loyalty and trust.

Committed senior level sponsorship and maintaining governance is key. Always critical to maintain the relationship, first and foremost. Often really challenging projects lead to great and highly rewarding outcomes for all,

It is always a good idea to take a step back and decide who is actually in charge of a project. Too many times, I seen contracted development companies try to take control of a project when it was the hiring company who should have been calling the shots. Once a hired entity maneuvers themselves into the Command and Control position, projects take longer to complete and seldom hit the customer’s target.

One of the causes of customer and vendor dissatisfaction price increases. We see this with some SaaS companies that have a management or ownership change and start doing everything to increase money extraction from existing customers. As a SaaS company ourselves we always try to put ourselves in our existing customers position, understand their expectations and keep a bias towards maintaining price level for early customers as much as possible when there are policy changes. This can be done by applying discounts or grandfathering pricing or free features for the original customer base as much as possible. Here it is important to remember who got you where you are.

The key to avoiding the conflicts described in this article is to run a methodological solution sales process. When things go terribly wrong during the delivery phase, the chances are that a few corners have been cut during the sales process. Either the vendor has oversold, the requirements don't reflect the reality or align with the implicit expectations, or both. Either way, when this happens, it's important to understand that everyone involved is in the same mess. So rather than trying to point fingers, it's much better to admit mistakes, focus on a workable solution that gets everyone back on the firm ground, and then get on with it.

When dealing with a conflict between your Enterprise Software vendor and customer, here are additional considerations to keep in mind: 1. Legal Implications 2. Communication Strategy 3. Vendor Management 4. Customer Feedback 5. Risk Assessment 6. Expert Consultation 7. Future Prevention Remember, the goal is to resolve the conflict in a way that preserves the relationship with both the vendor and the customer while ensuring the continued success of your enterprise software.

The best way to solve a conflict is find ways on what subjects conflicts arises and avoid it, whether it’s on the product feature set, timeline or quality. I strongly believe in having the hard conversations at first, sets the expectations right and monitor risks along with focusing on key success criteria. Start well define metrics well; communicate periodically and on top of all this have the intent straight. It’s ok to make mistakes but realign and move forward.

is there a compelling event like a renewal or an event where the customer needs resolution quickly to help align requirements to the right timeline

Arrange a F-2-F with them, the best solution I have practied for decades :-) Essentially, often times, every stakeholders priorites not not also aligned which results in conflicts. Once they meet in person and understand each others challenges, solutions is the outcome

Negotiation: Frequently, conflicts arise from discrepancies between the promises made during presales and the actual deliverables provided. It's crucial to revisit the Statement of Work (SOW) to gain a comprehensive understanding of the client's requirements and expected outcomes. Addressing this issue is feasible through constructive negotiation between both parties. Given that retaining customers is paramount, identifying gaps and devising solutions becomes imperative in resolving conflicts effectively.

That's an interesting question. A customer is an amateur at enterprise software, and an enterprise software vendor is an amateur at a particular customer's business. Neither party can be completely happy or a victim. The key is for both parties to be happy enough to continue a project, and unhappy enough to continue complaining. AKA compromise. When one party appears to win, both parties actually lose.

The fact that the enterprise vendor & client are locked into a contract, clearly means they both need each other, even if it be for different reasons. Every contract has space for recourse to law, but I personally believe there is no need to head in that direction 99% of the time. One should not be judgmental as both parties share their concerns- both parties should be heard out patiently and impartially before steps to identify the real issue, seek out its correction and plan its implementation are jointly agreed to. Conflicts need not mean total breakdowns- all relationships have flaws, but so long as they are dealt with with professional maturity, nothing is unsolvable! And maintaining relations is key, conflict or not!