The grass isn’t always greener on the other side.

Recently, my team has been brought in on a few implementations that haven’t gone quite as expected. I understand that sometimes you might do everything right leading up to the implementation and still have some issues during the actual implementation. (Let’s be real, there has never been a perfect implementation. Something will go wrong!) But the degree of your issues might determine the success of the implementation and the use of your system from here on out. Throughout the implementation rescues, I have noticed a few things that potentially could have helped things from going sour.

How to prevent an implementation from going sour:

1.  Set expectations upfront

Make sure both you and your vendor agree on the terms of the implementation. This should include timelines, quality, and task responsibilities. Predict and plan for what will happen if (when?!?) things go wrong. What are the escalation paths?

Create Service Level Agreements (SLAs) can help keep vendors on the right track. We believe a vendor that’s unwilling to put themselves financially at risk (in a material way relative to the employer’s contract value) is not being a true partner.

2.  Make sure you’ve done your prep work

This includes having an assigned Project Lead and clean data to transfer. Implementations take some prep work ahead of time. Too often we see the momentum of a partnering decision waylaid by bad data and the extra delays the cleanup effort will require.

This also includes knowing the vendor you’ve just decided to partner up with. Are they new and less experienced with implementations? Is there a chance they might get bought out?

3. Have an escalation plan

Just in case you aren’t getting the service you need, you should know who to contact to get things back on the right track. Your vendor team should be able to provide this info for you.

Be sure to tie this to position and not just someone’s name. Turnover is a natural part of business and if your vendor’s staff is any good, they’ll have opportunities to climb the ladder or leave before your contract is complete.

What to do when an implementation starts to go sour:

1. Contact your service rep

Using your escalation plan, start with the person closest to your implementation, which most times is you client service representative or manager. If they are unwilling or unable to help, move up that chain until you can get someone to acknowledge and take care of your issue.

If you haven’t already done so, start asking around at industry events or every time you meet with your broker or consultant to find other employers using the same solution and/or vendor. Find out from those employers who their go-to person is. Often the maxim of “if you want something done, assign it to an already-busy person” carries over to the HR Technology space. Good representatives are important to identify ahead of time. Then you already have an introduction in place for when things get rough.

2. Be open to flexibility

We recently heard a vendor say that they “have never missed an OE date.” At first you might think this is a great thing, but for the client we were working with, it raised a red flag for us. Sometimes things get complicated and it is better to miss your goal OE date than have it up and running for that date, but unusable, glitchy, or error-laden for your employees.

3. Call Lockton

Ok, I am kind of kidding with this one. But know that we can help. Unfortunately, we have seen a lot of vendors mess up during implementation. Fortunately for you, we are well prepared to turn those implementations gone South right around.

Have you had a less than ideal implementation? How did you get it back on track? We’d love to hear more (war) stories. Share by commenting below. May the odds be ever in your (implementation) favor!