The ways in which SaaS organizations work are constantly transforming with the rising influx of new software versions, innovative features and updates, and dynamic customer expectations. With growing opportunities and thriving competition comes the necessity of offering improved customer experiences at every point of interaction.
Enters Customer Support!
With maximum companies concentrating on the first S (Software) of SaaS, it is imperative to shift the focus to the second S, that is ‘Service’, and build an equilibrium between the two to achieve total success. Have you ever wondered why a flawlessly superb software product sometimes fail badly to impress customers? Ideally, because customers with no prior knowledge about the product fail to use it successfully for their business. A constantly evolving software product company harping on innovation must always stay enlightened about the changing facets of customer experience and adopt better and brighter ways to offer intuitive and effective customer support at the very beginning of customer lifecycle.
Customer Relationship Management as a driving force
According to a report by Transparency Market R
esearch, SaaS is going to have a global market evaluation of over $100 billion by the end of 2022, and this expansive growth is propelled by innovative and futuristic CRM (Customer Relationship Management) practices. Yes, Customer Support is going to be a major factor in driving the B2B SaaS market and such exciting numbers should be an encouragement checkpoint when it comes to building a robust Customer Support process.
While Customer Support is registering the strongest demand for B2B SaaS solutions, creating a powerful CRM system doesn’t come easy. Unlike B2C, in B2B one is dealing with industry experts who know the ifs and the buts of the business, in and out. Hence, these businesses require a more professional and thoughtful approach when it comes to solving their software-related queries, confusions and difficulties. It is imperative for the customer support team to invest time, ideas and effort to create an attitude of empathy, blended with a realistic approach.
Capable customer support implies reduced churn rate
A known fact is that retaining existing customers is tougher than acquiring new ones, but customer retention forms the backbone of a thriving business. In fact, it is a critical metric that defines the level of your business success and service performance. Higher churn rate can significantly affect your business decision-making powers as well as revenues and according to an Oracle study, nine out of ten customers leave your business due to poor experience led by an indifferent customer support system.
Churn reduction comes with the responsibility of giving customers and their businesses the reassurance that they have made the right choice and guiding them to reduce friction in their business with first-rate solutions as quickly as possible. This means a proactive customer support team should be able to guide, direct, instruct and counsel customers in finding and utilizing specific product features, tools and functionalities to solve their business problems, in general, or at a particular scenario. A help desk ticketing system is crucial in transferring all end-user issues into a centrally managed support system so that customers’ problems are speedily and efficiently resolved. It records all the interactions between users and support staff – preferably across multiple channels – as a single conversation. Rather than waiting for customers to voice their concerns, a robust customer support team actively monitors accounts and reaches out at the first sign of trouble. This entire cycle in tandem helps in creating a stable CRM team, which eventually motivates the customers to stick around.
In B2B SaaS, clients expect a highly nurturing and exclusive relationship with their service partners and your customer support team should know about establishing one based on trust, empathy and a sense of service. Training your CRM team to understand the customers, putting them in the client’s shoes, thorough product knowledge, listening skills and setting the right expectations will work wonders for the company.
What about the challenges?
Nonetheless, one of the most difficult challenges of working in customer support in a SaaS business setup is communication and cooperation between teams. In a pool full of emails, complaints, and requests, the risk of potential misunderstandings is prominent and one’s response-time can increase dramatically. Therefore, it is imperative to get all the teams on the same page if you want to improve your overall customer satisfaction. This process is trickier than it sounds; one must make other teams realize the value of enhancing customer experience. As an example, Mafalda from Unbabel, an AI powered human translation platform, says “At Unbabel we often have calls with customers together, which also helps our customers understand that there’s a person behind our technology, that person is working every single day to make sure that great quality translations get delivered. Being transparent about this kind of thing adds a lot of value to our customers. And on the other side, it also recognizes the work that’s being done by our product team, and they also feel they’re contributing towards the success of the company. The positive feedback that we receive plays a huge role in keeping our teams motivated and moving forward.” To keep everyone in loop helps in improving customer support and paints a positive picture of the company in the eye of the client.
To Sum it Up
If you as a B2B SaaS vendor have a robust Customer Support team that keeps your clients happy and on board, then the chances of growing your business by leaps and bounds are much higher. Because a happy customer not only gets you entry to expand within the company, help you upsell and resell but also gets you referrals to potential customers.
Also, more than half of your customers go through your website looking for a solution before they end up calling, texting or emailing you, and hence, automating what you can as a business can help in delivering a better, more cost-efficient service to your clients! This not only saves time on both ends but also makes for a great keeping-the-customer-happy strategy.
Customer Support experience is becoming a pivotal battlefield for businesses and as a B2B SaaS provider, you need to ensure that your service professionals are empowered with the right tools, data, attitude and practices to support your customers at all levels.