Evaluating 3rd Party IT Services on the Web
I’m evaluating a web site for a friend. The site provides an online business service which can be accessed over the web. My friend would be reselling this service as part of his on-going business. The question is “What do I look for?”
This will be a service relationship among the end user, the re-seller ( my friend) and the service provider (web site owner). How the end user feels about the experience of using this software is extremely important. Because it is a service the end user can opt out at any time. There are competing services. There is a set-up fee, but nothing terrible. The web site does retain some of the end user data, but it is very fast moving. The data could become obsolete within months.
You might think that I would be looking at this service from a technical point of view. That will be important, but because this web service will be used as a resale product I should look at it in those terms. How will potential customers react to the site? Look and feel are important. Ease of navigation is important. I also have to think about reporting on activity. Is there enough information? Is there too much? Are the terms self-explanatory? Is there a glossary? What’s the user documentation look like? Not traditional IT stuff, but things that will make a world of difference to the ultimate client.
On the operations side there are other questions. Most of these questions are never considered by re-sellers or end users. They are important to the re-seller because he is selling the product as part of a basket of products. Any bad experience for the end user will taint his entire product line and his good name. The end user probably just doesn’t know how a service outage will impact his or her business.
Some of these questions are: Who owns the end user data? Usually you’d think the end user. It really depends on the agreement. What are the safeguards surrounding the data: in transmission and in storage at the service provider’s site? What is the level of service the end user can expect? Is there a statement concerning Level of Service provided? If there is an outage for any reason, how soon will the system be back up? What can the end user do in the interim? How much data will be lost; a day, a week, a month? Does the web site owner have a backup plan?
I’d also like to know who some of the competitive service sites. I’d like to see how they stack up against the service and site my friend is looking at. All those issues I raised above are important in the extreme, but also important in relation to what the industry expects.
There are many more elements. This is just the beginning.
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