Customer Assessment Pain Relief

Drowning in endless questionnaires and audits that drain your teams and stall sales deals? You’re not alone.

After being assessed more than 1,000 times across the major frameworks (SIG, HIPAA/HITRUST, PCI, SOC 2, ISO 27001) in nearly every industry, we understand the pain. The good news: you can dramatically reduce stress and effort by understanding the process and building an effective system around it.

It All Starts with Trust

Your fate often rests in the hands of the assessor, and assessors come in all shapes and sizes.

• Each assessor has strengths and blind spots.
• They’re often brought in late, under pressure, and seen as a roadblock to progress.
• What they want most is assurance that you respect the process.
• Most are understanding about minor gaps, but they lose patience quickly if you dodge questions or make things difficult.
  

Building trust early is the key to a smoother, faster assessment. Focus on:

• Helping the assessor understand your product and the risks to their business, especially regarding the data you have access to and your integrations with critical functions.
• Anticipating common questions and addressing them at the beginning of the process.
• Providing clear, credible evidence for key controls.
• Staying professional throughout the process.
  

A Real Example

At one organization, sales in the healthcare market were stalling during the security assessments. It wasn't because the information security program was bad; it was the lack of understanding of what was really being asked and the poor answers to the real questions. We documented quality answers for the most common questions assessors asked and provided them upfront at the start of every engagement, along with key evidence. The results included significant improvements in shorter assessments, reduced internal effort, and fewer contract delays.

Where to Go from Here

Seismika can help you design a repeatable process to streamline assessments, accelerate reviews, and keep deals moving forward.

Contact us to learn how.