“Wow how time flies! Remember way back in 2003, when the company decided we needed a fantastic website, with all of the latest bells and whistles? Well we did it, and it served us quite well at first. But it is showing its age now though, isn’t it? I guess it’s time to call the designers and developers and make some changes….”

Does this scenario sound familiar? It’s sometimes hard to believe, but given the rapid speed of Internet growth, the cutting edge technology that companies worked so hard to implement just a few years ago is now outdated and insufficient.  I’ve been working with many companies that are coming to this realization, and an unfortunate trend has appeared. These companies, sadly are completely determined to keep using their 3rd party vendors and service providers.

Services and vendor offerings I am referring to include web hosting, email, e-commerce and payment systems, surveys, content management systems and video and photo services.  Reasons that companies don’t want to change vendors vary – they don’t want to make the effort required to change, they feel entrenched, they’re nervous of possible ramifications, etc.  Although these can sometimes be valid reasons, more often than not this short-sightedness ends up being more expensive, provides customers a sub-par user experience and limits the company in serveral other ways. Read on to learn why.

1. Cost
   Cost is the most straightforward reason to consider a vendor switch. In the last five years, the number of internet service vendors has exploded – which has driven down overall costs. More products are based on open standards and existing frameworks and more are sold as a service and hosted in the cloud. Contrast this to what it took to install something like a shopping cart several years ago – then it was proprietary and customized – at a high cost. Often clients are still paying monthly fees for these outdated services – and drastically overpaying at that. Now they can consider new options and opportunities that improve what they offer their customers, at a much lower cost over the life of the website.
2. Ease of Implementation
   Companies remember the hassles and time required to add that shopping cart or add that video to their site years ago and are hesitant to go through the same ordeal again. The small vendors they selected from limited options years ago took forever to respond and had poor documentation.  However, much has changed – many current providers are bigger with much larger customer bases. They’ve greatly improved the implementation process, with excellent documentation and sample code and robust APIs that give more flexibility for implementations. There are many customers that share sample code and have documented their implementations. Forums and responsive users abound to discuss and help in using the products. Current vendors offer more services that are easier to add and maintain than before, at a reasonable cost.
3. More Available Options
   Today’s established vendors have a more dedicated focus and larger teams working to support their products. They are working to make their products as useful as possible and offer many new features and options. These new features make your website more useful to your own customers.
4. Better Customer Support
   Along with some of the reasons these products are easier to implement is the improved customer support – the vendors are larger or more specialized and have knowledgeable dedicated staff to help your company use their products. And through forums and development websites, more customers are active in the discussions as well – making it much easier to implement the products than in the past.
5. Growth Opportunities
   Finally, the way the product will grow and improve is important to consider. Many of the vendors that have been around for many years have all but given up on keeping their products current. Reasons vary – perhaps their customer base is small and the product isn’t worth upgrading. Perhaps the vendors don’t have the right staff to keep the product current. If your vendor’s offering is the same now as it was five years ago – chances are they aren’t looking for ways to improve their product and your business – switching to a dedicated vendor will better ensure that your website will grow with more and better functionality in the future.

With these reasons in hand, consider your current vendors and if they’re really meeting your needs. If you’re not sure, start researching their competition. Check the services provided and pricing. You may be surprised at what’s possible out of the box now, and how reasonably it can be priced. Good resources, aside from just Googling, include TechCrunch and Mashable.

Let me know your thoughts. Have you found a new vendor that drastically improved your website?