Is Our HR Solutions Selection Tool Too Wordy?

Oct 10
07:54

2009

Clay C. Scroggin

Clay C. Scroggin

  • Share this article on Facebook
  • Share this article on Twitter
  • Share this article on Linkedin

I received an email from a visitor to CompareHRIS.com who said our HR solutions selection tool was too wordy. My polite answer is that it’s supposed to be because picking HRIS software is not easy.

mediaimage

Yes,Is Our HR Solutions Selection Tool Too Wordy? Articles yes, I know that some of the “other” sites that assist with an HR solutions selection don’t have as many questions. Their forms are easier and it does not take as much time to complete as ours. I looked in detail at what the “other” sites offered before creating our HR solutions selection tool.

I started researching the other sites when I owned my previous business as an HR software reseller. At that time, we were offering prospects and clients one of two HRIS products. I originally went to these other sites looking for additional products to offer to our prospects. Even with my fifteen years of experience, I was not able to get enough information on any of the systems to make a decision on which I should look at in greater detail. I am certain that anyone else who wants to compare the leading HRIS or HRMS vendors has run into the same issues I ran into. This is why I created CompareHRIS.com; as a solution to that problem. The core of that solution was our “wordy” yet highly detailed and informative HR solutions selection tool.

The problem as I saw it was the other sites did not offer enough detail to assist those who were researching HRIS or HRMS systems. Five or fewer questions about your needs does not help with identifying what these systems are capable of or help in any way with establishing your needs for a system. Five or fewer questions are simply not enough detail. The difference is that all we offer on CompareHRIS.com is HRIS/HRMS solutions. This focus enables us to be more detailed and offer greater value to our site’s visitors. I guess if I was also listing forklifts, accounting software, or who knows what else, I would not be as detailed either.

Our HR solutions selection tool accomplishes a number of objectives for those who are researching HRIS or HRMS solutions. The questions in the tool represent the most comprehensive list I have seen of the features and options that are represented with today’s leading HRIS systems. Any article you are going to read on selecting HR software will tell you that you need to determine your needs first. Our HR solutions tool, more than any other I have seen, can greatly assist with this process. There’s also the educational value of the tool. Before you can establish your needs for a system, you need to understand what the systems are capable of. A less wordy HR solutions selection tool would not provide the education or assist you with establishing your needs for a system. Then there is the added benefit of the result. Upon completing the tool, the user is presented with a scored list of the products matching their specific and unique needs. The other sites won’t offer this type of feedback because they are unable to by only asking a few questions regarding your unique needs.

Let me let you in on a little secret. CompareHRIS.com and our competitors are all lead generation businesses for the HR software vendors represented on our sites. The reason the other sites have so few questions and so little information is that their strategy is to have as many people as possible fill out the form in order to create as large a number of leads as possible. The problem for the vendors with this approach is that it creates a large number of leads but it does not match the needs of the prospect to the vendors offering a solution. In other words, from the vendor side of things this short form approach does not create qualified leads or qualified vendors. Our vendors have seen that our approach has worked and many of them have dropped off the other sites and are now only advertising with us.

Lead generation is how we get paid but I realized early on that I needed to offer an online resource to those researching HR software applications. I needed to offer what the other sites in my opinion were missing, a truly unbiased HR solutions tool that would educate prospects on the capabilities and features available with today’s leading HRIS systems and present prospects with a scored list of the products providing the closest match to their individual needs and requirements. Almost two years after I began working on CompareHRIS.com, this feature still makes us, in my opinion, for our vendors and for our visitors the most comprehensive site available for those researching HRIS and HRMS software.

The other sites don’t provide this level of detail because, for one, they can’t. They are not specialists in anything other than transferring your personal data to someone else for a fee. You will notice that we only offer HRIS and HRMS solutions on CompareHRIS.com. We don’t sell forklifts, accounting software, copiers, or CRM systems. Why? Because it’s not our expertise.

Five or ten questions doesn’t accomplish anything. Those that think five to ten questions is enough are not giving the job of selecting a HRIS system the credibility it deserves. After over fifteen years of selling HRIS and HRMS software, I saw firsthand how difficult the task can be. After researching the other sites, I saw the need for a more wordy helpful HR solutions selection process.

Is our HR solutions selection tool too wordy?  Probably, but if selecting HR software were easy or if five or fewer questions were enough, I never would have created CompareHRIS.com in the first place.