POC criteria
- Real data, real segment, 30 days minimum
- Reply rate, meeting-set rate, CRM-hygiene delta
- Latency budgets for any voice or chat feature
Reference-check questions
Ask for the customer at 90 days, not 30. Ask what broke and what they wish they'd known. Ask about the vendor's failure mode.
The two over-promises
Integration depth ('bi-directional' rarely means what you think) and time-to-value ('two weeks' typically means eight).