This is an updated version of a previously-published article called 8 Sample Questions to as Education Technology Suppliers.

If you’re in the market to buy a product or service to enhance the educational technology in your school, what are the questions you should be asking potential suppliers? Definitely not “What is your response time?”. Here are 8 suggestions for questions you should ask instead, and why the response time one is not very useful.

What does it do?
Does it do X, where “X” is a broad functional specification. (Eg, “Will it enable all pupils to use the printer from any device?”)
What does it cost?
What online and/or phone help is available?
Can you provide me with details of three reference sites — preferably ones that haven’t been given better equipment or more training than an “ordinary” customer might expect?
What is the interoperability/compatibility of this product with other products we already have (eg the information management system your school uses)?
What are the minimum hardware/infrastructure/operating system/software requirements for this product to work?
What is your fix time, ie the time you take to sort a problem out? NB: Do not ask what their response time is, because that tells you nothing. You could receive an automated response immediately, but not receive actual assistance for several days.

I wrote this piece especially for the Bett show, but it is applicable more generally.