As a trusted business partner, buying a learning management system (LMS) for your organization is a critical task to undertake. It requires careful consideration of your company’s unique needs and objectives — from evaluating features and scalability to ensuring user-friendly interfaces, selecting the right LMS is crucial to allocating your training budget to the right solutions.

When buying an LMS, learning leaders will typically schedule a discovery call with a sales representative to ask questions and gain a better understanding of the technology, and ultimately, decide if the tool will be a great fit for the business. However, surprisingly, many learning leaders overlook this step.

According to David Wentworth, Schoox’s vice president and talent platform evangelist, a lot of times companies will skip the call, and instead, look for checklists of features to browse on the provider’s website. This, unfortunately, can result in buyer’s remorse, which affects 61% of small and mid-sized businesses (SMBs) in the U.S.

However, with the right questions in place, you can steer yourself toward selecting the right tool for the job — opposed to wasting the budget on a technology that will render more headaches than solutions. In this article, we will evaluate two simple steps to selecting the right LMS for your organization, including six critical questions to ask LMS providers.

Step No. 1: Research Business Operations and Needs

To avoid a wasted investment, you must begin the LMS selection process by conducting research on your organization to discover their specific needs, strategies and operations. Here are three critical questions to start with:

1.     What’s my learning strategy?

The initial step to asking the right questions during a discovery call is to know what to ask. All of this begins with understanding specific business needs and aligning learning and development (L&D) efforts to support those goals.

“I always go back to what’s currently not happening or going poorly,” Wentworth says. “That’s sort of driving the decision to either get a system in the first place or replace an existing one.”

In the article, “7 Tips to Get Your Team Through an LMS RFP,” Barry Nadler, CPTM, an L&D thought leader with over 20 years of experience, advises to not rush the process, but instead give yourself time. “As you go through this process, don’t forget to evaluate the gaps in your current solution and capture requirements that fill those gaps.” L&D teams should not settle for a generic request for proposal (RFP), but instead should start with asking themselves these questions:

• What are my learning goals?
• What features should and shouldn’t be in the LMS?
• What tasks will the technology be expected to accomplish?
• What is my learning team trying to accomplish?
• What am I trying to do?

By asking these questions, L&D professionals can evaluate the LMS from their own perspective rather than through the lens of the provider. This approach helps learning leaders understand how the tool’s features will specifically meet their organization’s unique needs.

2.     What are current business challenges?

Next, you must compile a list of current problems the business is facing that the LMS should help solve. Determine problems that you’re having and use those to determine what features you need.

Here are some questions to ask yourself:

• What specific business problems are we facing right now?
• What features do we need in an LMS to help solve the current business problems?
• Who is most affected by these problems and what are their specific needs?
• What current gaps are contributing to this issue?

3.     What is the current ecosystem?

The selected LMS will need to integrate and function seamlessly with the current ecosystem. During this phase, assess all platforms, products and/or services to determine LMS integration. For example, learning leaders may assess their customer relationship management (CRM) system and/or human resources management systems (HRMSs) to determine compatibility for LMS integration.

This may require partnering with and/or interviewing information technology (IT) teams or subject matter experts (SMEs) to get an understanding of the tech ecosystem. Here are some questions to ask IT when evaluating the current tech ecosystem:

• How does the tech ecosystem currently operate?
• Who has ownership of what systems?
• What types of shared data are available?
• What are some examples of existing platforms that operate in this kind of environment?
• How many tech tools are on premise versus in the cloud?
• Are there other tools the company may consider using in the future?
• What is the technology roadmap for the company?

Talking to internal IT teams can help learning leaders paint a picture of what their tech ecosystem looks like, which they can share with potential providers.

By the end of the first step, you should have the knowledge and data needed to formulate questions specific to the company.

Step No. 2: Interview Potential Providers

Once you understand your business’s operational needs, you can begin scheduling calls with potential providers. Though each business may have their own special set of questions based on desired features and functionality, there are still critical questions to ask LMS vendors.

Let’s evaluate six questions to ask LMS providers before you buy:

1.     Does your organization meet industry compliance and standardization requirements?

These requirements will be based on your company’s industry. Other compliance considerations include whether they operate globally, if their platform adheres to GDPR standards and data privacy protection. “A safe LMS protects sensitive information through encrypted coding and secured server/cloud data storage. Cloud-based data storage is always preferable,” says Shikha Bhatnagar, an independent instructional designer, in the article, “6 Things to Consider When Choosing a Responsive Learning Management System.”

2.     What are your standards for accessibility?

This includes whether multimedia effects like visuals, graphics or alternate text are in accordance with accessibility standards, even if it isn’t a state requirement. “If possible, choose an LMS that utilizes HTML5,” Bhatnagar says. “This feature is useful for learners who want to learn while traveling. With HTML5, your learners can easily download the learning material and then access it offline.”

3.     Can you meet our company’s future growth plans?

This requires knowing future company plans, like whether the business has potential plans to expand in size and geography, for example. You want to invest in a tool that grows with the company.

When selecting an LMS to scale, Nadler suggests that learning leaders should expect to have an LMS for 3-5 years. “Therefore, you want to make sure your requirements can sustain and grow over that period and align as much as possible to your long-term strategic goals.” Bhatnagar also advises to, “Opt for an LMS that is fully customizable and can adapt to changing requirements.”

4.     What is your company’s footprint?

An LMS vendor’s footprint refers to their presence, impact and influence in various markets. This can help determine their history, how long they’ve been in the game, and whether they will be sustainable in the future.

5.     What are your support and help desk services?

Ongoing communication and support is necessary for a successful partnership. For example, in a global company that operates in different time zones, it may be imperative to ensure providers have 24-hour technical support. This can also clue you in to the responsiveness of their support team. Ask providers about their turnaround times and the lifecycle of support tickets. It’s also essential to understand how they handle customer feedback. Ask for examples of how the product has evolved based on customer feedback.

“Check the online presence of the vendors and find out if they offer tutorials and FAQs or if they are active on tech forums,” Bhatnagar says. “Many customers share their experiences and review LMS vendor services. Such reviews can also assist in vendor selection.”

6.     What are your pricing models?

Every vendor prices differently and will have their own pricing models. Be sure to ask providers the terms of their models: Is it per user, active user, month or is it annual? “Make sure you understand the distinction between the cost structures because that dollar amount might mean something else to another vendor based on different criteria,” Wentworth advises.

To do this, ask providers about the unit value per active user. Also ask about any recurring charges and an implementation fee. Are there any sort of ancillary costs? For example, does the provider offer content that is free and/or paid, and if so, how does this work? Another critical question to ask is if the cost structure changes based on the length of the contract. It’s very important to understand the fine details to avoid any surprises.

Closing

Learning professionals can use the data from their custom questionnaire to evaluate benefits, features and any drawbacks. This can help stakeholders participate in the process and lend their feedback on specifications. Use these questions as a guide when starting your own LMS selection process to ensure you choose the best tool for your company.