A sales demo is designed to showcase a product at its best. Your job is to redirect it toward your reality. The most useful demos are driven by the buyer, using real scenarios and pointed questions rather than passively watching a scripted tour.
Drive the demo with your scenarios
Prepare a few representative cases from your practice — a new patient visit, a complex chronic-care follow-up, a prescription with an interaction, a referral. Ask the vendor to walk through each end to end. Count the clicks and note where the workflow feels awkward.
Questions worth asking
Workflow and usability
- Show me documenting a typical visit in my specialty from start to finish.
- How are templates created and edited — can our staff do it without you?
- What does the system look like on the devices we use?
Interoperability and integration
- How do you connect to our labs, imaging, and billing system?
- Which FHIR APIs and data export options are supported?
- How does the patient portal release results and notes?
Reporting and compliance
- Show me a MIPS or quality measure report and how it's generated.
- How do audit logs work, and who can access them?
Implementation and support
- What does a typical implementation timeline look like for a practice like ours?
- How is data migrated from our current system, and who validates it?
- What support is included, and what are response-time commitments?
Contract and cost
- What is the full pricing structure, including implementation, training, and ongoing fees?
- What are the terms for exporting our data if we leave?
Watch for evasive answers
If a vendor deflects a direct question, demonstrates only a polished happy path, or cannot show a feature live, treat that as a signal. Ask to see the actual capability, not a slide describing it.
After the demo
Debrief promptly with everyone who attended, score the product against your requirements, and capture open questions for follow-up or references. A structured debrief keeps impressions from fading and keeps the comparison honest.
Bottom line
Control the demo, use real scenarios, bring your end users, and ask for live demonstrations. The questions above turn a sales presentation into a genuine evaluation of fit.
Use a consistent demo script
If you are evaluating several products, give each vendor the same scenarios and the same questions. Consistency is what makes comparison meaningful — otherwise you are comparing one vendor's strongest demo against another's, which tells you little. Send the scenarios in advance so vendors can prepare, but reserve the right to ask for an unscripted variation during the session to see how the system handles the unexpected.
Pay attention to the unglamorous parts
Sales demos naturally highlight the most impressive features. Some of the most important capabilities, though, are mundane: how quickly the schedule loads, how messages and refill requests are handled, how easy it is to correct a mistake, how the system behaves with a slow connection. Ask to see these everyday tasks, because they consume far more of a clinician's day than the headline features.
Don't skip references
A demo shows the product in ideal conditions; references show how it behaves in the real world. Ask vendors for references in your specialty and of similar size, and prepare specific questions: How did implementation actually go? What surprised you? How responsive is support? Would you choose this system again? Honest reference conversations often reveal more than any demo, and a vendor reluctant to provide them is itself a signal worth noting.