Capitalist Note: The following is NOT a sponsored post.  I've been on the road a lot in the last month, and I'll be sharing some observations in the next few weeks related to what I saw.  The company referred to in the post below didn't pay me for the post-for a full disclosure of how I roll related to what I write, see my Frauenheim Disclosure post from a year ago.  Still holds true...

Trust and the vendors who provide solutions your HR department uses every day - Trust?  Vendors are there to be leveraged and when they slack, you have to kick them a little bit to let them know who's boss, right?

Right.  But you and I both know you have favorite vendors.  They usually have some things in common: Their solution is one of the best, they're proactive and when you have issues or just need a little help, they're better than the rest.  They have GREAT people top to bottom in the organization.

The problem: It's hard to qualify all of that before you sign on with a vendor in any class - background checks, performance management, etc.  You can't know all of the factors before you sign on, especially the quality of the team top to bottom.

Good news.  I'm going to give you the name of a company you can rely on for all of that, and I've got the data to prove it.  The company's name is Halogen Software, and they provide Talent Management solutions (performance management, compensation, succession and more) to companies like yours.

I've been on the road for the last month speaking at a bunch of events.  During the period, I keynoted the Halogen Software customer conference.  I noticed they had a bunch of good people top to bottom in their company.  A couple of weeks later, I spoke at the humongous HR Tech show and Halogen was named as the leader in Customer Satisfaction by Bersin and Associates.  Here's a rundown from HR Tech:

"Halogen Software was named a customer satisfaction leader for the second consecutive year in Bersin & Associates’ latest research bulletin, Customer Satisfaction with Talent Management Systems: Our Initial Findings. The Oakland, Calif.-based research and consulting firm released these preliminary findings on customer satisfaction with talent management systems providers during the HR Technology Annual Conference and Exposition last week in Chicago. Final results will be shared in the second annual client satisfaction study, planned for late November.

According to Bersin & Associates’ preliminary published results from its comprehensive survey of 16 vendors’ clients, Halogen emerged as a clear leader in every satisfaction area measured – product quality, implementation, service and business partnership. Halogen was also the leader for the midmarket (organizations with up to 5,000 employees and less than $1 billion in revenue) – the fastest growing market for integrated talent management systems today.

“This consistent level of customer satisfaction shows that Halogen has built a world-class solution and is a customer-centric company,” said Josh Bersin, chief executive officer, Bersin & Associates. “Its organically built, integrated talent management solution is very well received by the midmarket, and we congratulate Halogen again for this achievement.”

By now, you're saying "KD, you're a hack".  Who cares about a press release?  Exactly.  That's why I grabbed a slide that shows the Talent Management vendor universe from the Bersin presentation, so check out the slide embedded below.  See the company alone in the top right hand corner?  The one that the data shows is thrilling customers, exceeding expectations, delivering on promises and basically making customers referral machines like no other in their industry?

That would be Halogen.  Click on either slide to blow it up and take a look.  Let it soak in a bit.

Kind of impressive, no?  Press releases can't do justice to the picture.  It's official, Halogen rocks.  Just like Cleveland, but their HQ city of Ottawa is much nicer to visit.

I've had the good fortune of being around the Halogen team for multiple days related to their customer conference.  Here's a list of some of the key people I've met and spent a little time with at Halogen:

Paul Loucks, CEO
Donna Ronayne, VP Marketing
Don Sylvester, VP Sales
Marc Brule, VP Client Services
Pete Low, CFO 
Dawn MacKay, Director of Product Management 
Connie Costigan, Director Marketing Communications
Sean Conrad, Senior Product Analyst
Sue Bond, Director Professional Services 

I share that list not to name drop, but to tell you I've identified the key to Halogen's success and why they're a top right box vendor in a hyper-competitive space.   I talked not only to the top of the company, but spent time with the folks in the trenches at Halogen.  Spend two days with the team, and it's obvious that they've built their company in a very purposeful way:  Top to bottom across Halogen, their people are a) high quality from a skills and knowledge perspective, b) likable and approachable, and c) have an unbelievable attitude related to customer service.  

Translation: They've taken their time to hire great people, and don't settle for people who can't be all three things I've listed above.  I would guess they've quickly ejected folks they missed on in the hiring process.  It's true with the names I've listed all the way down to the service and inside sales folks doing demos in the lobby of the conference.

Hopefully, when they eject the people who don't fit the mold, they use their own software to determine that.  I think that's likely in the case of Halogen.

There's a lot of good software out there, but let's face it, you're rolling the dice related to the service you're going to get after you sign up.  The Bersin data proves one thing: There's no dice toss required when you choose Halogen.