Ask what happens when it breaks.
Most demos show the happy path. Ask the vendor to walk through a failed integration, a duplicate event, or a partial update, and what a person sees when it happens. If they don't have a ready answer, the system probably doesn't either.
Check whether they map before they build.
A workflow automation partner worth hiring insists on understanding how work currently moves before touching a tool. If a proposal arrives before anyone has asked about your exceptions, approvals, and workarounds, the scope is guesswork.
Look at what they've actually shipped.
Published case studies, not slide decks, tell you whether a team has taken something from a workflow map to a production system a real business depends on. Ask what broke during their last project and how they fixed it.
Understand what you'll own afterward.
Source code, integration credentials, documentation, and a clear support boundary should be part of the conversation before a contract, not after launch. A partner worth keeping makes your team more capable of running the system, not more dependent on them.
Price the whole outcome, not the hours.
A cheaper build that nobody can maintain is expensive later. Compare proposals on the workflow's error rate, exception handling, and handover quality, not just the headline cost of the first phase.
Bring your workflow, your constraints, and the outcome you want to achieve.