One of the biggest mistakes SaaS companies do is letting third-party professionals handle the customer support department. It creates a divide in communication and prevents professionals in the SaaS industry to meet the needs of their clients sometimes.
While it may be the norm for a major chunk of the industry, many companies are breaking the norms and showing it really needs to be done. The Receptionist is one of the most SaaS companies in the world, and the CEO himself handles customer support.
Customer support and helpdesk should never be secondary to your business. Everyone in an organization should be involved in handling the customer’s needs as it helps integrate all moving parts of the clock that is a SaaS company.
Third Party Solutions Fail to Offer Quality
While you may be banking on the best customer service representative in the world to handle your calls, but a third-party solution is not going to help you collect proper feedback. You may have an extremely large customer base, but it’s not always about complaints or basic support that comes through from your customers. Many customers offer invaluable feedback, and it may not get relayed to you well enough through a third-party service provider.
People who are at the top of an organization are capable of understanding a company’s culture and work ethics. According to an article on leadership by the Harvard Business Review, any business leader who wants to create change in his organization needs to look into the mirror and ensure they are setting the right behavioural examples.
Handling customer feedback or queries is not something you can pick up and do in a day, creating a customer-focused culture takes time. It is essential for a SaaS business to understand how customers feel about your offerings and what they would like you to improve. Customer experience is of utmost importance for a SaaS company, and with so many SaaS companies offering more of the same, a customer is never out of options without you. However, you, on the other hand, are completely reliant on customer satisfaction for your cusses, and it should be your top concern.
Direct Support Enhances the Customer’s Perspective
A customer’s journey is prioritized when you offer customer support yourself. When a customer is unhappy about something not working as he expects it to, he calls up support staff, and it can take a variable amount of time for his issues to be resolved.
If you are handling support by yourself, it shows your customers that you care. According to research by Wunderman 79% of customers in the US and 72% customers in the UK consider brands that care about them. If you are directly speaking to your customers no matter how big your market base is, it shows that you care about their problems or feedback, and resolve them to the best of your capabilities.
The usual trend is to orient your business to what works well in the industry instead of trying something new. If you want to stand out and make a mark in the industry, you need to break predefined standards and understand what your customers really want.
In Enhances Your Available Resources
Data is considered to be one of the most important resources for any business. And there is a lot of ‘invisible data’ that is lost when you obtain third-party customer executive services. If your company’s customers know that you are always there for handling their needs, they will reach out to you more often and sometimes you may receive invaluable feedback.
The more you flesh out your staff for offering customer service, the broader your horizons are when it comes to receiving input. Knowledge gaps are created when relying on third parties for handling customers and having a direct line of contact also helps you understand which problems you need to address first.
Budget
Despite all of the benefits that you receive from offering customer support yourself, there are always resource restrictions. All SaaS companies are restricted by their budgets, and even the biggest company in the world has a limit on how much it can spend on each department. Customer care is not free from budget-based decisions either.
If you offer customer services yourself, you do not have to pay a sizeable amount of money to professionals to do it for you. Despite the extra effort you need to put in, it eventually becomes more rewarding as a company that cares is a company that draws more customers.
Conclusion
If you are able to offer a positive experience to your customers, the more customers you will retain. It has been proven countless times that customer retention is a more reliable form of revenue generation than banking on getting new customers all the time.
If you are able to offer quality services backed up top-notch customer support, the more likely it is that your market base sees the value of what you are offering. Customer support is not an entry-level job that many perceive it to be; it should be a collective responsibility that all parts of an organization strive to deliver. Creating a brand is what matters in the SaaS industry, and there is no better way to do it than make your customers happy.
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