A checklist to help you evaluate whether your partner is the right cultural fit and providing you with the level of service you deserve

In Part 1 of this 3 part series, I shared my thoughts on the technical qualifications to consider when evaluating your current Sitecore partner. While the Sitecore landscape (and digital tech, in general) evolves at lightning speed, some things don’t change. For example, having a fruitful relationship with your implementation partner depends on trust, transparency, alignment, and cultural fit.

If your Sitecore partner’s skill set has not advanced much over the past 3 years, they will not be able to help you get the most out of your Sitecore investment. Even if you are not migrating to XM Cloud, you will benefit from working with a partner who understands what is involved and can bring headless and GenAI expertise to you so you can stay up to date with digital modernization.

What to ask yourself to determine whether your Sitecore partner is still “the one”:

1.     Do they bring you new ideas and value?

It’s not uncommon for me to meet with a company that has had Sitecore and the same partner for years, but they are not aware of what the newest Sitecore products are or what is on Sitecore’s product roadmap. Even more cringe-worthy is when I meet a Sitecore customer who hasn’t heard about what composable methodology can offer them.

You should expect your Sitecore partner to be an extension of your team, bringing you new ideas to consider—especially when there are so many ways to get more out of your existing tech stack. I’m not talking about constantly selling at you but sharing thought leadership, methods to accelerate your delivery and adoption time, and always thinking about how their suggestions will deliver measurable results. 

2. Are they an extension of your team?

Your partner should feel like an extension of your business. The highest compliment our team receives is when we hear that our clients often forget that they are an outside partner. 

The best partners build trusted relationships because they are transparent, great communicators (ALL of the team, not just the Project Managers), and collaborate freely—both sharing their expertise and learning from client teams.

3. Do they know Customer Experience and Design?

You may have a partner who handles your technical Sitecore support and development, but what if you need help improving the UX on your site? Can your day to day contacts quickly get your need addressed without a lengthy, costly design project? 

Make sure you have a partner that can support these needs as you have them. Better yet, choose a partner who not only has the digital design expertise, but whose designers are also fluent in Sitecore tech so that the designs created look and function as expected when they actually get built. (Hint: This is what XCentium designers offer.)

4. Are they available when you need them?

I think most of us have experienced some form of this scenario: You start a relationship with a new partner and it goes great. You feel like a top priority. They respond to you minutes after you reach out. You feel like you are working with their A team. You successfully launch your big, high-stakes project. And then . . .

Things quietly and gradually shift. You get new resources who don’t show the interest in your success that the original team did. You have a concern keeping you up at night that you reach out to your partner about and it takes days—sometimes weeks for them to reply. The quality of the work starts to suffer and you aren’t always sure what they are doing with the hours they bill you. 

The best partners will make your concerns a priority and work with you to improve the level of service you are getting. If they aren’t coming to the table to collaborate with you on this, it’s time to look for a new partner.

5. Can they quickly scale up or down, depending on your needs?

XCentium is invested in building long-term partnerships with our clients. We recognize that your needs will not always be for a large scale implementation. But, we believe that the best partners support your needs of all sizes and types. You benefit from working with a consistent partner who already understands your business and unique needs.

We are as enthusiastic about smaller initiatives as we are the large ones. Sometimes a small project (in timeline and cost) can deliver huge impact to business growth by enabling new revenue streams or by drastically reducing the cost of tech debt or operational inefficiencies. We love when we can help our clients hit or exceed their performance goals and earn promotions!

6. How long do their customers stay with them?

One of the XCentium differentiators I am most proud of is our customer satisfaction and retention. Our company has been around for over 13 years and we have clients who have been with us since the start of that journey.

You can’t get results like that by only being a large company or by having great technical resources. To retain customers for that long, you have to be invested in relationships. You have to be responsive and listen to your customers. 

You have to consistently deliver value.

If any of the above sparked additional questions or interest, we’d love to hear from you. Please reach out to me here or connect with me on LinkedIn. We are always happy to discuss your questions and share our point of view.

Take a look at Part 1 of this series which focuses on the technical qualifications of the ideal Sitecore partner.

Or head over to Part 3 which addresses the question: If I don’t have a Sitecore partner now, why should I consider working with one?