Every vendor's demo is built to go well. The sample company has tidy customers, the routes are already optimized, and the invoice that comes out is paid. None of that tells you how the product behaves with a builder who has eleven lots, a site that shut for the winter, and a driver who swapped a unit without writing it down.
These fifteen questions turn a demo into a test. Send them ahead of the call so the vendor can prepare; a good one will thank you.
Money and terms
- What is the price at my size today, and at two more trucks and three more people? Get both in writing. How the pricing models differ.
- How long is the contract, and what is the notice period to leave?
- What is not included? Card processing rates, SMS, training hours, marketing add-ons, extra users.
- Can I run a trial on my own customer list, not your sample data? A trial on your data is the only way to test billing.
Billing
- Show me the first invoice for a unit placed on day nine of a 28-day cycle. You want to see proration to the day, and the next invoice at the full cycle. What a correct prorated invoice looks like.
- Show me a builder with units on four lots. One invoice or four? Can the builder get one email with all four, and pay them together?
- Pause a site for the winter, then bring it back. Does the rate card stay, and does billing stop and restart on the dates you set?
- Show me the report that lists every unit that should have billed last cycle and whether it did. If there is no such report, ask how you would know. Why this report matters.
- What goes to QuickBooks, and what happens when I void an invoice? Online or Desktop, invoices and payments, credits.
Routing and the day
- Plan my real Tuesday. Every truck, every stop, with the disposal site's hours. Does the plan know when the tank fills and add the dump stop itself? What to look for.
- A driver skips a stop at 3 pm and does not tell anyone. What happens at 5? You want an end-of-day report and a one-click reschedule. The missed-stop report.
- Two drivers share one truck iPad. How does the service report know which one did the stop?
Drivers and customers
- Does the driver app work with no signal, and what happens to the photos when the signal comes back?
- Can a customer see their units, request a service, and pay, without calling the office? Ask to see the customer portal from the customer's side. What a portal should do.
- What did you ship for portable toilet companies in the last twelve months? A vendor built for this industry has a list.
After the demo
Write the answers next to each question while they are fresh, then do the same demo with the second vendor. The one with the fewest "I'll get back to you on that" answers knows its own product. And if the answer to question four is no, the contract in question two matters a great deal more.
