The vendor has a mechanism for us to submit product enhancements and appears willing to listen
Description
Any user who experiences a specific software system for long enough will identify enhancement opportunities. The software should allow for users to submit enhancement requests in the system and be able to track them. As a bonus, the system should allow users to vote on the most popular enhancements.
Example Use Case
Scenario: A multinational manufacturing business is using a forecasting system to plan for finished product demand. While the software contains most of the functionalities they need, there's room for several potential enhancements like a subcomponent forecasting, a live chat support feature, advanced inventory forecasting algorithms, etc.
Solution: The organization communicates these needs through the vendor's product enhancement submission mechanism. The vendor plans to incorporate the enhancements in subsequent software updates.
Considerations
Providing these enhancement requests to your Account Manager is not a sufficient mechanism for communicating what functionality is needed. The product management and engineering teams need to see these directly, and only will do so if the vendor has a mechanism inside the application to do that. They will look at similar submissions and determine which should be prioritized. Some will never see the light of day, in part because they are minor and do not move the product forward. Some are amazing ideas that only a customer could come up with and will be put on the roadmap quickly. It all depends on the vendors' priorities.
Questions to Ask a Vendor
Feedback channel: What channels does your system provide for submitting product enhancement suggestions? How accessible are these channels?
Response and Process Time: How quickly do you respond to enhancement suggestions? What is your general time-frame for developing and implementing accepted enhancements?
Engagement Metric: Are there any success stories where you've acted upon customer suggestions for product enhancements?