Is your data held hostage?

During our day-to-day communications with clients, and prospective clients, we hear lots of stories about the other providers in our industry. Some good, some bad. And we all have to admit there is no perfect solution, but we should all strive to create it.

However, the choices made by some providers is puzzling. Like the practice of holding customer data hostage. Let me say up front, here at nizeX, we guarantee in writing that the customer owns their data. If for any reason one of our clients wanted to leave our service, we simply hand it over to them.

The stories we hear of other providers refusing to hand over a customer’s data are, at times, amazing. Even when a payment is offered for the data, it still may not be turned over. And often when it is, it is Encrypted. Making it useless to the client, and conveniently difficult for another provider to import. Now I have my own personal suspicion as to why this is practiced. You will have to draw your own conclusion. On a recent occasion, a prospect stated his provider has him “handcuffed” to them because he is not allowed to get his own data for his 2 stores. He is not happy with his provider, and his provider knows this, yet as he put it, “I’m locked in”.

If you are evaluating Business Management Software, or if you already have a provider and would just like to know, ask the service provider what happens if you are unhappy and want to try another option. In other words, know both ends of the relationship before you enter it, or it may come back to bite you.