One key ingredient of every successful business is great people. Even before they become profitable, businesses are built by people that put in the time, energy, and creative power to turn diffuse ideas into focused success. Human resources (HR) software is an essential tool for people-powered businesses.

If finding either of these two things–great people or software that makes your life easier–were simple, I wouldn’t be writing this blog post. Luckily, TrustRadius can help buyers with the software part. And the HR Management, ATS, and Talent Management software provided by companies like yours will help with the people part.

Finding the right HR software can be quite the endeavor. There’s a laundry list of things buyers need to consider before choosing their next HR solution, including which features and modules they will require, and what level of post-sales support their business will need. Some important questions buyers often struggle to answer include (but are definitely not limited to):

• Which products have all the capabilities they’ll need?
• Which products are the best fit for their company size?
• Which products are within their budget?
• Which products will serve the needs of all the end users in their company?
• Which vendors offer high quality pre-sale AND post-sale support?
• What type of learning & training resources does the vendor offer?

With all these different factors to consider and (literally) hundreds of HR Management software options to choose from, it’s no wonder that 68% of HR professionals agree that it’s hard to find the right HR Management software.  According to our research, your marketing messaging alone isn’t doing the trick for 3 out of 4 software buyers when it comes to identifying differences between products and figuring out which one is the best choice for their business.

In order to help HR software buyers figure out which products are the best fit for them, find out how to differentiate between products, and ultimately make more informed purchasing decisions, we’ve created a Buyer’s Guide to HR Management Software.

What’s in the guide?

The guide highlights 10 of the most-reviewed HR Management products on TrustRadius, and gives readers an at-a-glance view of each product. Curious about whether or not your HR Management solution made the cut? Here’s a list of the 10 products that are featured in the guide:

• UltiPro
• Workday Human Capital Management
• Ceridian Dayforce
• TriNet
• Oracle HCM Cloud
• Kronos Workforce Ready
• Paycor
• ADP Workforce Now
• Paycom
• Kronos Workforce Ready
• Ascentis
  

Don’t see your product here? Check your listing on TrustRadius.com to see how your solution stacks up against other products in our HR Management category.

Though this guide does not offer an exhaustive list of HR Management solutions, these 10 products had the most customer verified reviews–50 or more–of the HR products listed on TrustRadius. They’re leading our HR Management software category, our overall website traffic reflects this, with 46% of buyers evaluating HR software on TrustRadius focused on these 10 products.

Within the first quarter of 2019 alone, nearly 1 in 4 HR software buyers (24%) compared two or more products. Since so many people want to evaluate HR Management software head to head, we decided to give each product included in this guide a dedicated profile page featuring a handful of easy to compare metrics.

These profile pages provide buyers with a closer look at who’s using these products (company size and industry), the highest and lowest rated features, direct user feedback highlighting product use cases, and the answers to 5 key questions we hear buyers asking, based on HR professionals’ experience with each product.

The guide also provides buyers with two comprehensive product matrices with recommended product comparisons, how often other buyers are researching each product, and a display of feature ratings across products.

What your customers love & hate about buying HR software

We asked our community of HR professionals to share what it was like to buy new HR software at their organization, as well as what they would do differently next time–to source tips for fellow buyers, and for vendors hoping to improve their relationship with their customers! We also asked them to weigh in on five key questions we hear software buyers asking all the time:

• Do you think the product delivers good value for the price?
• Are you happy with the product’s feature set?
• Did the product live up to sales and marketing promises?
• Did implementation of the product go as expected?
• Would you buy the product again?

Based on our research and knowledge of the market, we know software buyers want direct, no-nonsense answers to these questions from peers who have first-hand experience.

Our research revealed how HR software buyers perceive the purchasing experience within the industry. In general, HR software vendors are doing a good job providing users with products that meet their needs–almost 9 out of 10 people agree that products in the space deliver good value for the cost.

However, buyers find other aspects of the purchase process more difficult; roughly a third of HR professionals surveyed said products did not live up to sales and marketing promises and that implementation did not go as expected. A couple of ways vendors can improve their relationship with their customers in these areas are:

• better aligning their sales and marketing messaging to reflect real user experience with the product
• being more upfront about future hurdles and the resources they provide to help customers overcome them

The guide includes segmented responses to these 5 questions for each product. But here’s an aggregate view of all survey responses:

Download the guide to see how your HR solution stacks up against the average and find out what your customers are saying about their experience with your product.

Who should read this guide?

We know that today’s buyers use multiple resources when looking for new software solutions. In fact, our research shows the average buyer consults 5.2 different sources of information during their software purchase process.

This guide serves as a free resource and useful tool for buyers at all stages of the software purchase process. It can help buyers evaluate products on their shortlist, identify differences across products, and get a better feel for what to expect after the sale has been made in terms of implementation, customer support, and learning curves. And you have the power to help them find it! Making sure your buyers have access to trusted resources they can use to verify the story you’re telling about your product will help them build confidence faster. It will also strengthen your relationship with your buyers. Customer evidence is one of the key pillars that helps educate buyers and speed up deal cycles.

Though it is called a Buyer’s guide, this report isn’t only for professionals currently in the market for some new HR tech. As a vendor, this guide is a great way to visualize how your HR software solution measures up to other products in the market. Download your free copy today to see what your customers are saying about you! (And if you’re not featured in the guide, don’t miss out on this easy-to-digest competitive intelligence on key players in your market.)

If you’re interested in learning more about how to leverage customer voice and reviews to stand out as a leader in the HR Management software marketplace, come talk with us.