Thursday, March 3rd, 2011

Why You (and Your Customers) Win with SaaS

By , Social Media Manager

As a member of the client services team at Box, I’ve heard my share of customer stories about legacy systems that simply don’t work. For many businesses, the stresses associated with spending countless hours and dollars trying to deploy enterprise software just isn’t worth it; after all, if end-users aren’t able to use the so-called “solution”, they’ll just find another, most intuitive way to get their work done. These stories of frustration and dissatisfaction make it clear that traditional methods of delivering enterprise software are broken. I think there’s a better way to do business – one that benefits people on both sides of a business contract. Here are three reasons why going the SaaS route creates happy customers and a better product:

You have to deliver on promises

In the world of traditional enterprise software, a company is only worried about selling you a product once. After they’ve done that, they have very little responsibility (if any) to make sure that the software delivers as promised. By providing SaaS, you’re forced to follow-through with your promises – if you don’t, your clients will simply stop paying for your software. This has been taken one step further with the rise of the freemium business model, where customers are able to fully explore a solution before they decide to deploy it to their entire enterprise. Unlike the providers of legacy systems, SaaS providers can’t run the other direction once they’ve convinced a client to sign the dotted line.

You have to support customers

Let’s say you’ve succeeded in convincing your client about the merits of your software and they decide to buy it. In the world of SaaS, getting a client to use your product doesn’t guarantee success, because even if your product is perfect, you still need to provide a support network to keep your customers happy. If you don’t, they may go with another solution that offers top-notch customer support, even if that solution doesn’t offer all of the functionality of your product. Here at Box, we try to connect with our customers through multiple channels: via social media, a product forum, and more traditional support mediums like phone and email. Since SaaS providers must essentially “re-sell” their product to existing customers, they must be dedicated to clients’ long-term success.

You must innovate – fast

Tech is an incredibly fast-moving industry, and SaaS providers need to keep up with their customers in order to provide the best product on the market. Our engineering team is constantly developing new features and applications for Box since our goal is to be wherever our customers are, whether that’s a desktop, laptop or mobile device. In contrast to the long, drawn-out product cycles of typical enterprise solutions, the Box team builds new features and applications every month, not every 4 years. This is what our customers expect from us, so this is what we deliver. Unlike others who rely on locking clients into clunky legacy systems, we rely on having a great product that’s supported by employees who care about our customers. The end result? Happy Box users and a constantly-improving product.

Post By Mara Lising, Client Services Representative

Mark Saldaña

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Social Media Manager

See all of Mark's articles.

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    G.N.R.S.U love Box~~