There are a lot of reasons you might want to develop a trainual saas 27m series (Software as a Service) product, or even an entire company around the idea. One of these is the interesting and lucrative opportunity that arises if you’re able to create something that provides an invaluable service to customers. The more value your company provides the better, but at least make sure your product is useful.
In this blog post I share six tips for delivering value, so don’t hesitate to read all about it!
1. It’s all about the customer
Be honest: some of your customers are not real users. In SaaS, you do not need to be a customer (unless you want to get paid), so don’t treat them like they are.
This is different from an app or a website, where people sign up and use your product without paying because they actually want to be part of it. In SaaS, only a small number of people sign up for software that enables them to do their job well and effectively, that’s why we call them actual customers . These people pay us fairly large amounts annually for the condition that we do our job well.
These people are what we call users. So instead of thinking about your customers as just the people who actually pay you, think of them as great potential users too. This will help you identify and create new features they will love and use regularly, improving their quality of life greatly.
2. Add people, not features
This is a bit more obvious than the first point, but often enough overlooked by many software developers that I want to make it clear once again: do not add features to your product if you don’t know how to make them useful for your customers!
There is no need to stress over this matter; it’s all about being selective in adding new features to your product. Of course it’s essential to have good tools — the kind of software development you’ll need to use will increase your ability in delivering value, so this is a must. But the points above take priority: creating great software is about finding solutions that make your customers happy and delivering value, not creating new features for the sake of doing so.
Of course if you’re not sure, feel free to ask. That’s what SaaS is all about and why we created this platform in the first place!
3. Always respond to feedback
Most software applications aren’t loved by everybody immediately after release because most customers don’t know how to get the best out of them.
In fact, your customers may get frustrated by something that is easy to change. Frustrated by the fact they can’t do something they think should be a-la-carte, or annoyed by the lack of documentation or app support.
A simple response (even if it’s not an actual solution) to these kinds of issues will build trust between you and your customers. Trust is key — customers will feel like you’re making their life easier and become more loyal to you as a company. In some cases, this might even lead to new signups!
4. Test and adapt
This point is an important one, especially for SaaS products.
You should always be testing new features in beta versions, to see what your customers think about them. They are the most important thing you have and you need to act based on what they have to say. Even if you don’t think that a particular feature will be useful, keep it in the game and observe how people use it — that way you’ll always be on the safe side.
5. Treat them right!
The first 4 points of this blog post are all about creating value for your customers. This point is more about the relationship between you and them.
SaaS is all about good relationships — there are so many things that can go wrong when building software for a business. It’s super important for you to be on the same page as your customers, so always double check what they expect and make sure you can deliver it.
6. Give them what they want
This might seem obvious, but it’s still important. If you add new features to your product or create a new product, make sure that it can be used by your customers. Don’t let them down — if you get customer feedback about the fact that something doesn’t work with their other software or computer type, do all you can to fix it!
Conclusion of this article:
There you have it — 6 tips for creating products that provide real value and make people happy. The more value you provide in your company and the better relationships you build with customers, the longer they will stick around. It’s true that no guide is ever going to guarantee you success in SaaS — it’s difficult to please everyone and there are so many different possibilities when building software for businesses. But with these 6 tips, you should already be way more on your way to creating great (and useful) products for your customers. That’s why we made it easy for you: our platform will continue evolving and adapting its features to create the perfect user experience!
