The ultimate guide for choosing frontline employee engagement software

Choosing the right frontline employee engagement solution for your organization is a challenging task, given the countless options available in the market. The good news is that a thorough Request for Proposal (RFP) guide can make this process smoother.

This comprehensive guide outlines the key criteria, requirements, and considerations essential to evaluating potential solutions. From functionality and scalability to user interface design and support options, the RFP guide ensures that all of your organization’s unique needs are considered.

Use it to solicit detailed information from vendors and foster transparency so you can make a more informed, streamlined decision when selecting an employee engagement solution that aligns seamlessly with your organizational goals.

Running a “Needs Analysis”

When purchasing an employee engagement solution, it is important to have a clear understanding of the organization’s needs and objectives, as well as what gaps exist so you can ensure the solution meets the organization’s specific needs without being overly complex or difficult to use.

Before evaluating and implementing employee engagement software into your organization, a needs analysis should be performed. The scope and the level of detail required for a comprehensive needs analysis will vary by organization.

In its most basic form, a needs analysis begins by assigning a few members of the organization to the evaluation team to serve as the point person for their department and/or function. Using Google Sheets or Excel, list out each functionality or need on its own line. Each team member should evaluate the functionality line item in their own column. They should also add their own needs to the list and determine whether each line item is a “must-have,” “want-to-have,” or “don’t need” in their appropriate column. To ensure all needs are accounted for, each representative may wish to discuss the document with their colleagues to ensure they didn’t overlook any of their function’s needs.

At the end of this process, categorize your list of needs into overarching functionality themes such as employee listening and surveys, people analytics and reporting, and employee communications.

Getting the buy-in for an employee engagement solution

Making the business case for employee engagement software is a crucial part of the process. Executives must explain why the investment will benefit the company overall, and how it will help employees reach their goals. Factor these into your pitch

1. Align with organizational priorities: Explain how employee engagement software will help the organization meet its goals. For example, if your organization is focused on cost savings, lean into how the software decreases turnover costs long-term.
2. Highlight the ROI: Show how employee engagement software will boost the bottom line. Hear from an experienced CEO on how to tie employee engagement to ROI.
3. Build the story: Emphasize the connection between engagement & performance with concrete examples. If possible, share specific stories of how frontline feedback has altered a process or strategy for the better.
4. Adopt the right lingo for your audience: If you’re speaking to operational executives, hone in on language and impact like productivity, service, and cost.
5. Share case studies, statistics, and testimonials: Ask your employee engagement vendor of choice to provide you with customer stories and testimonials, Total Economic Impact™ studies commissioned by Forrester, or supporting data on how frontline engagement impacts the bottom line.

Remember, as you are selling the solution internally, it is important to tailor presentations and conversations based on each individual stakeholder’s needs and interests so they understand how it will positively impact them. When in doubt, ask your vendor for help!

How to evaluate employee engagement solutions based on needs

Once you have your needs analysis completed, start researching frontline engagement solutions that can support your unique needs. This may look like:

• Asking colleagues or friends for recommendations
• Searching online, including in online communities
• Asking analyst organizations such as Forrester or Gartner
• Scouring software listing sites
• Utilizing AI tools like Perplexity.ai and ChatGPT

Then select 1-3 of the most promising vendors to evaluate. Send them the needs analysis and request an initial demo of their solution. You may choose to hold the initial demo call on your own to disqualify any solutions that don’t fit. However, including some additional colleagues and getting their insights and concerns can help you further vet solutions. If you’ve categorized your needs analysis into themes, you can host demo calls to cover each theme and thoughtfully pull in the key decision-makers for each category on the relevant calls.

It is also important to benchmark current solutions against potential ones to compare features side-by-side. This includes examining:

• Pricing models
• User interface design
• Customer support options
• Features such as SMS reminders and notifications
• Analytics capabilities
• Scalability for future growth
• and more

By factoring all of these into consideration when evaluating solutions, organizations can make an informed decision that best meets their unique needs while also providing value for the money spent on a successful frontline employee engagement strategy.