Customer support is a floating or sinking scenario for all businesses, and SaaS businesses are not an exception. No matter how plain and simple your software product is, you’ll always find that one person who needs some assistance. And if you are not in the right place at the right time to provide this assistance, that’s when the sinking part begins. And not just sinking figuratively but literally going down together with the whole company.
Indeed, customer support is the first point of direct interaction with your customers, and if you fail to put your best foot forward, you may not have a second chance to create the first impression. In fact, most customers would rather deal with a poorly designed product instead of poor customer service. After all, they can always solve any product-oriented issues by talking to the customer support representative but can’t solve customer support-related issues anywhere.
To ensure that your business offers excellent SaaS customer support, you not only need to invest in modern tools and technologies but also ensure that your reps respond to customers quickly. And to do this, they should have a good understanding of what their role entails in terms of offering an excellent customer experience. If you are bootstrapping your startup, however, you may not have the financial muscle to have an in-house 24/7 SaaS maintenance and support team. And that’s where the outsourced SaaS support model comes in.
In this article, we are going to look at what outsourced SaaS support service is, how to staff your SaaS support team using this model, and how it compares to having an in-house team.
What Is SaaS Support as a Service?
Put simply, SaaS operations support entails providing continued customer service after a sale or assembling a support team to meet your customer’s post-sale needs. Generally, it involves incoming support for customer inquiries and educating the customers on how they can best use your product or service to solve their problems or reach their goals.
As a business owner, your SaaS support desk is the first point of contact after a sale and sometimes before a sale. As such, how they interact with your customers mirrors the integrity and appeal of your brand, as well as signifies either the beginning of an extended relationship or the end of it with the customer.
Common Problems Faced By SaaS Customers
Many promising startups have come and gone for the simple reason of failing to understand the common problems faced by SaaS customers. This despite pivoting, tweaking their products, rebranding, and burning through lots of capital.
In this section, we are going to identify the most recurring problems faced by SaaS customers.
Accessibility
One biggest mistake that most companies make when designing their digital products is to assume that every customer will find all the necessary buttons and lobbies. The only problem with this is that it makes it difficult for the customers to start using the product, ultimately failing to get the right traction right from the beginning. By using customer support SaaS systems, however, most of this friction can be eliminated.
Speed
According to statistics published by Small Business Trends, 90% of customers say a faster response is important when it comes to customer service. The same report indicates that a customer expects to receive a response within 10 minutes or less. If these statistics are anything to go by, the prospects of having a 24/7 SaaS product technical support team start to become apparent.
Hyperspecialized and saturated SaaS market
New SaaS products keep popping up now and then. And although having competition is a good thing, it also means that customers have to deal with multiple options. Still, most individual business functions require different products, which are more than often provided by different vendors.
The sheer range of solutions available for any particular problem exacerbates hyperspecialization. As a business owner, this may mean using different solutions for a variety of business processes. Take an e-commerce business, for example, you may need to use MailChimp for email marketing, Quickbooks for accounting, MageMail for abandoned cart emails, SEMrush for competitor research— and the list goes on.
To overcome this challenge, you need to ensure customers can easily integrate your SaaS app with any other existing solution by making your Application Programming Interface (API) public. And by hiring support staff for SaaS with experience in this area, you can then provide users with the very best experience.
Data breaches
Before the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) came into effect in May 2018, most businesses could have been forgiven for paying little attention to where their data servers were physically located. This occasionally meant that customer data could have been stored anywhere, exposing it to data breaches. After all, SaaS cloud support is pretty much available everywhere.
When this regulation arrived, however, it introduced dire consequences for businesses that fail to comply. The good thing about hiring an expert support SaaS is that they ensure your privacy policy is GDPR-compliant, plus they can respond to any GDPR-related concerns.
Outsourced SaaS Customer Support Vs. In-House Specialists
Now that we have seen the challenges faced by customers, let’s now discuss how to hire a customer support for SaaS. Generally, hiring and maintaining an IT support SaaS team boils to two primary options; an in-house team and an outsourced team.
As the name suggests, an in-house SaaS technical support team means the team works within the same building as you do. This type of hiring model allows companies to maintain better control over their performance. In retrospect, however, you’ll need to shoulder all the overhead costs, and anything in between that comes with having permanent employees.
Outsourcing, on the other hand, means delegating your tier one SaaS support or any other support level to an external network support technician or agency. Usually, outsourcing is more cost-effective, plus it gives you access to a large pool of talent. Still, it is flexible, allowing you to scale down or increase the number of workers needed depending on your business needs.
From this brief head-to-head comparison, it is clear to see why most businesses prefer outsourcing over an in-house team.
Why You Should Consider Ukrainian SaaS Technical Support Experts?
When it comes to choosing an online tech support SaaS outsourcing destination, you need to consider several factors including industry experience, the price rates, and the country’s labor laws. Today, most companies are gravitating towards Eastern Europe and Ukraine in particular.
So what makes Ukraine so alluring for business owners as an outsourcing destination?
Price
Unlike many European countries where the cost of outsourced software-as-a-service (SaaS) solution support is high, salaries, taxes, and regulations are relatively low.
Skills
Ukraine boasts one of the most educated populations in Europe, and indeed, the world at large. This means they have access to new technologies and trends and have the skills to deliver outstanding solutions that can compete on the international level. Along with that, most Ukrainians are bi-lingual, which is an absolute necessity in the SaaS support realm.
Location
Ukraine is conveniently located in eastern Europe, making communication and business meetings easy.
Reasons to Partner with Our SaaS Support Desk Experts
Every successful company needs the support of a powerful and experienced SaaS support team. Based in Ukraine, our agency helps businesses around the world to build SaaS Support teams that ensure that your customers get the most out of your products and services.
Our remote tech support services will break all the communication barriers between you and your customers, facilitate an engaging experience, and resolve challenges that may arise after a sale or service.
We always strive to build and maintain mutually beneficial partnerships with our customers by providing them with personalized solutions that fit their business needs and goals. This compounded with 24/7 support availability makes us your go-to outsourcing partners in Ukraine. Whether you are looking for a SaaS outsource engineer or an IT security engineer or a team of the same, we’ve got you covered.
Our Process
Our process is optimized to help you and your business get the best value for your money. Here is our simple step-by-step approach in hiring a SaaS support remote team:
- Determine your hiring needs. The very first step towards hiring a SaaS support team entails setting up a virtual meeting to establish your hiring needs, and the skills and experience needed to build your remote team.
- Selection of SaaS support agents. Next, we begin the process of selecting agents from our huge pool of qualified professionals. After we’ve selected the most qualified candidates, we will send you their resumes for consideration.
- Screening. After selecting the most fitting candidates, we will set up virtual interviews via video conferencing or Skype.
- Contract signing. Once satisfied with the candidates, we will agree on the working formalities, establish a start date, and sign the service agreement.
- Induction. The induction process will begin, and it includes the formal introduction, finalizing the working formalities, establishing a feedback loop, and anything else in between.