All of the major decisioning vendors have industry consultants. They provide a valuable service and they help you to get the most out of their software and services. They are all, however, limited in the advice they can give. Sometimes they are engaged too late in the process to steer the outcome to a better solution. Other times the vendor hat they wear limits their advisory degrees of freedom. I know this role well; I did it for 20+ years.
In that time I gathered a lot of valuable experience. Features that I thought the customer understood sometimes seemed at odds with their expectations. Some implementations started simple and then a tiny requirement flipped everything on its head and a long struggle ensued. Sometimes implementation decisions were made upstream of the vendor that made things unnecessarily more difficult. Oftentimes the client and the vendor seemed to be speaking past each other and couldn’t get to the bottom of issues or concerns; they were caught in an endless circle of finger pointing.
Is there a better way to gather requirements and make sure customer is getting exactly what they need? What if the client had some independent coach, someone looking out for their interests during the entire process? This coach could be involved at the very front end of the purchase process to make sure a path through issues is properly mapped. This idea was the genesis of Accorti Consulting.
In my career I have always put the customer’s interests first. I’d rather not sell you something than burn my reputation. I encourage you to reach out to me with any question. Even if I can’t help you I’ll likely know who can.