{"id":12,"date":"2026-07-17T08:29:07","date_gmt":"2026-07-17T08:29:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/zedconsulting.co.uk\/zed_insights\/?p=12"},"modified":"2026-07-17T09:18:56","modified_gmt":"2026-07-17T09:18:56","slug":"how-to-run-a-vendor-neutral-crm-shortlist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.zedconsulting.co.uk\/crm-blogs\/selection\/how-to-run-a-vendor-neutral-crm-shortlist\/","title":{"rendered":"How to run a vendor-neutral CRM shortlist"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A vendor-neutral shortlist keeps the buying process honest. Here is how we run one for clients.<\/p>\n<h2>Write the requirements before the demos<\/h2>\n<p>Score every platform against the same list, agreed before anyone sees a sales deck.<\/p>\n<h2>Score price and fit separately<\/h2>\n<p>A cheap platform that does not fit your process is not actually cheap once you account for workarounds.<\/p>\n<h2>Reference-check like a hire<\/h2>\n<p>Talk to two existing customers who look like you, not the vendor&#8217;s chosen showcase account.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This is a long excerptThis is a long excerptThis is a long excerptThis is a long excerptThis is a long excerptThis is a long excerptThis is a long excerptThis is a long excerptThis is a long excerptThis is a long excerptThis is a long excerptThis is<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-selection"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zedconsulting.co.uk\/crm-blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zedconsulting.co.uk\/crm-blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zedconsulting.co.uk\/crm-blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zedconsulting.co.uk\/crm-blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zedconsulting.co.uk\/crm-blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.zedconsulting.co.uk\/crm-blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32,"href":"https:\/\/www.zedconsulting.co.uk\/crm-blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12\/revisions\/32"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zedconsulting.co.uk\/crm-blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zedconsulting.co.uk\/crm-blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zedconsulting.co.uk\/crm-blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}