SaaS Customer Experience

The unhappy, annoyed, or bored customer is the scariest thing happen to any business. When it comes to SaaS company, it can be more dreadful as losing each customer is not a loss of growth opportunity only, it can be the irreparable damage to the solid and long-run source of recurring revenue.

The SaaS businesses survive when these sources of the recurring revenue remain uninterrupted, consistent, and constant. To keep these sources flourishing and evergreen, it is inevitable to keep the customers satisfied and comfortable.

The contented customer is the evidence of a great customer experience.

This article entails what the customer experience means for a SaaS company and how it can be fixed, elevated, and managed by deploying some simple but smart techniques and strategies that improve customer perception of your product and keep them connected as a consistent and constant source of the recurring revenue.

Also Read: Learn Why You Need a SaaS Subscription Billing Solution To Boost Your Recurring Revenue

Understanding the Customer Experience in SaaS

From onboarding to retention, customer experience is the key to evolution, growth, and success. Instead of tossing around the term with different lenses and evaluating its essential elements, it can simply be understood as the customer’s perception of the brand.

The SaaS customer experience is a customer’s holistic perception of the experience he or she has with a SaaS product. It is developed and shaped by each interaction through which a customer has come in contact with the brand or the business—from navigating the website to using the product to pre- and post-subscription communication and support.

As a digital asset, SaaS has to compete more to influence the customer’s perception. You may have a great brand; your product might provide more solution, but, it doesn’t mean that it also fulfils all the requirements of the customer, or, a customer is contented with all the functionality, accessibility, and reliability of your product.

Unarguably, customer experience is one of the most valuable aspects of a SaaS company. In its all forms, it decides and defines a SaaS product’s development, company’s direction, its goals and objectives, and management of all the business processes.

Providing a stellar customer experience is not a one-day job, it requires persistent and perpetual effort in dedicated directions that includes sales, marketing, product development and engineering, customer support, and more.

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It is neither a one-man job, too. It takes all the workforce and resources to provide stellar customer experience. Enabling each person in a SaaS company to identify, understand, and deliver their full to prioritize a customer preference and influence its perception is the ultimate secret ingredient for the excellent customer experience.

Persuading customer without intruding on their space is the customer experience. Having a responsive and highly alert website or application is customer experience. Easy and quick sign-ups are customer experience. Proving before and after-sales customer support is customer experience. And, everything that touches the notion of the interaction with the customer is the customer experience. It can be only be transformed best when these touchpoints are dealt with all the expertise, experience, and following the needs of the customers.

Also Read: Metering SaaS Usage—Learn How a Flexible Subscription Engine Uncovers the Hidden Revenue Opportunities

The SaaS Customer Experience Matters…

If the customer perception of your product is not satisfactory, it means the customer experience is not good, and, it can cut the customer cords and hurt the revenue growth and business reputation of a SaaS company.

It is also important to attract more benefits like:

Customer Loyalty

The great outcome of customer satisfaction is customer loyalty. As better the customer experience is, as a reliable connection between the customer and the company establishes.

In an age where acquiring customer doubles the cost of operations and management, business models favouring customer retention are the saviours.

Taking advantage of the SaaS subscription model, investing in customer experience can give better customer engagement, reliance, and loyalty.

On the other hand, the unpleased customer can damage brand loyalty and influence revenue streaming negatively as well with negative referrals.

Brand Advocacy

The loyal customers are the best advocates. People, in general, believe the first-hand experience and mouth referrals more than the reinforcing marketing gimmicks. A practical user with a hands-on approach to using a SaaS and gets benefit from it is a real magnet to attract more customers for on-boarding and keep them to attract more.

Competitive Edge

A good customer experience impresses the customer and peddles the purchases for the future as well. SaaS products can take the ultimate advantage of their customer loyalty and brand advocacy by capturing the niche market. It gives them a competitive edge and psychological superiority to dictate and direct the market as per their preferences.

Trusted Relationships

More customer loyalty builds trusted relationships across the board. SaaS companies with strong customer base maintain trusted relationships with their employees, partners, and other stakeholders.

These relationships are based on financial stability, customer-centric approach to manage business processes and problem-solving properties of the SaaS company.

Evolution And Innovation

Stellar customer experience is the product of collaboration and management of different business processes. It allows SaaS companies to export their data sets and evolve, efficiently. It brings innovation in their product and services as well.

Also Read: 07 Features to Look Out For When Selecting a Subscription Billing Service For Your Subscription Business

The Secret Ingredients to Improve Customer Experience

Customer experience is no rocket science. It just needs an understanding of how and when directs product and company services in accordance with the customer’s comfort. For any SaaS subscription business, these are some of the essential ingredients that do not improve the customer experience only, they also strengthen the very position of the SaaS product in the market.

Self-Service Functionality

SaaS businesses usually have a huge customer base. It is not possible to manage all their subscriptions, billing, and collections, individually. Handing it over to the customers can also make the business messy. The best way is to allow them to manage all their concerns through their dedicated spaces—the customer portals.

These customer portals are the self-service portals that enhance the functionality with the increased participation of the customer.

The self-service portal eases the scalability and customization of the platform where customer can relate and is allowed to use without any unrequired information. From getting an invoice to the payment collections, the self-service functionality adds the spices and flavours of personalization for the customers.

Also Read: Customer Self-Service Portal for SaaS in 2022

Subscription Management Flexibility

Providing customer with the experience custom-made to their needs is a great way to keep them connected. It includes plans and pricing of the product, functionality as per their usage, and ease of use.

Customers want to go through everything and do every job at the speed of light. Some may be interested in your product but can be deflected if they are not comfortable with the pricing or the tailoring of the plan.

The ability of the SaaS company to tailor their offering quickly and aptly appeals to customers and keep them away from switching to other options.

SaaS Communication Automation

Automation not only conserves the resources, but it also is a great assistance to stay communicated and connected with the customers. Your customers want you to drop every piece of information into their inboxes.

The SaaS communication automation replaces the manual efforts to keep the customers updated on their status and their processes. The short, effective, and simpler messages in a real-time hit them and keep them informed and updated.

Responsive Interface

You have a great product. Your marketing, sales, and support—all are serving the best to the customers, but your product is lagging.

It is enough to deflect a customer to the competitor. The boring, slow, and complicated navigation, browsing, and surfing is the killer of every potential SaaS product. From the website to the application, SaaS companies must come up with agile and attractive platforms to build outstanding customer experience. The smooth and seamless interface enhances the user experience.

Quick Customer Service

Often customer service and customer experience are used, interchangeable. That is the worth of the customer support and service. The ideal structuring of customer support varies with the audience but one thing that is required everywhere in the customer support is the quick response and service.

Despite the great product, agile platforms, and excellent pricing and plans suitability, often poor customer support worsens the whole customer experience and become a reason for a customer to detach.

The automated responses, ticketing, and one-window customer support solutions for all the concerns ensure great customer experience as well. Sometimes, it even mitigates all the risks and fills all the loopholes of the product or the services.

Customer-Centric Product and Services

Yes, it is your product but if it is not enough capable to serve the needs of the customers, it is of no use. Feedback plays an important role in developing the product and services on the line of the customer. The feedback directs the SaaS product development in the direction of the customer needs and requirements.

Feedback is a hotchpotch of complaints, suggestions, queries, and concerns. Address them all to transform the product and its functionalities according to the customer needs.

Customer’s Journey Monitoring and Mapping

Each customer is different, so do their needs. Often, customers are not even able to understand or communicate what do they want. Monitoring and mapping the journey of the customer removes the confusion around the needs, usage, and the requirements of the customers. It enhances all the pain, pressure, and relieve points of the customer ride along the SaaS journey.

Also Read: Self-Service Payment Portal: Digitally Empower Your Clients and Simplify Account Access