There is hardly any company that wants its customers to walk away frustrated and angry. When it comes to buying a product or making use of a service, people trust their friends, relatives and colleagues more than they trust any other marketing channels. Because of increased usage of social media networks, a customer complaining about a bad customer service can reach a much wider audience than ever, which will result in a huge loss for a business. To avoid such cases, companies, especially SaaS, should offer exceptional customer support to keep customers happy and satisfied. In reality, you may have the best SaaS product, but when you don’t have the right strategies of supporting your customers and answering to all of their questions related to the usage of your product, then there will be no one out there paying for your services. Great customer support services accompany customers during their journey and respond to all of their needs and wants. According to American Express Survey 2011, about 79 % of consumers have not completed the planned purchase because of poor customer support service. If this fact alone is not enough for you to pay too much attention to your customer support strategy, here are more reasons why SaaS companies should implement it:

Retaining customers

For acquiring new customers, you need to have a winning product, however, for retaining your current customers, you need to have an excellent customer support. According to  Ipsos, a global market research company, it costs 5 times more to acquire a new client than to retain an existing one. However for retaining your customers, you need to make them satisfied, make them feel appreciated, which is why exceptional customer support service from your SaaS company is really needed.

Getting feedback from customers

Customer feedback is vital information for all of SaaS companies. It’s always important to analyze your customers’ opinions about your product and to create your retention strategies accordingly. Customer support system is the voice of the customer. It helps customers transfer information to the company and it helps companies to use feedbacks for continuous improvement of their SaaS products.

Not all SaaS companies do that

Though importance of customer support is undeniable, there are still many SaaS companies out there that don’t implement it, so when set a support system, it can help you stand out. Make sure that your customer support service includes not only direct support with online means like live chats, emails and blogs, but also telephone support. Though there are many SaaS companies who don’t use it, it’s essential, because there are still many people who like to get explanations via telephone instead of chats.

Anticipating problems

One of the most important benefits of customer support for your SaaS company is that you can foresee and anticipate problems/concerns before they go viral. Everyday communication with your customers will help you understand which are the most common problems and concerns they have with your SaaS products, so you can fix them immediately. In addition, a good customer support service will help SaaS companies handle customers when there are unplanned outages or updates.

Managing relationships

Managing relationships with customers is essential for any SaaS company, as it is the main way through which they manage their current customers and prospects. Your salesmen may be perfect in bringing a lot of new customers for your business, but the success of your company will mainly depend on how many of these new customers you are able to retain. Customer support service keeps good relationships with customers, because it is one of the best ways to show that you really care about your clients. Reduction of churn rate by 5 % can bring an increase in profits for more than 70 %.

Winning new customers

The main source of referrals for your SaaS company are satisfied customers. And how you make sure that your customers are satisfied? Of course, it’s thanks to your good customer support service. Referrals are usually converting at high rates, sometimes about 6 times better than non referred leads. So, if you want to attract new customers, make sure that customer service is on the top of your to-do list.

Increasing profits

For SaaS companies, customer service can also be a reason for higher profitability. The reason is not only that it protects against churn and decreases costs of customer acquisition, but it also increases your sales revenue. When customers are happy, they tend to stay with that business much longer, which results in higher lifetime value. In addition, according to many researches, it was found that people are ready to pay more for the product/service if they get better customer service. Now, when you are familiar with most of the benefits that customer support can bring to SaaS companies, here are some things you should keep in your mind when providing customer service:

Sale is not the end

There are many companies out there, who have a goal of closing as much sales as they can. Of course, it’s important to close sales, but it’s not the end. In SaaS, sales is just the beginning of customer journey. To encourage customers to use your service, you need to provide them with exceptional customer support. Lesson 1: Any business transacting online should treat a first-time conversion as the beginning of a new relationship and, from the outset, resource their operations to deliver ongoing customer communication, tracking and support.

• Customers are unique

All of your SaaS customers are unique with their own needs, preferences, problems and priorities. Each customer can use your software in a way that differs from others. So, you should not communicate with all of your customers in the same way, rather you need to show individual approach to each of them based on their unique needs.

• Changes are inevitable

Want it or not, changes are going to occur in SaaS industry, which will change the way your software needs to operate, people’s needs and so on. So, for SaaS vendors, this means that customer support is needed to make sure that customers are getting the best of your software. According to Ruby Newell-Legner “Understanding customers” report, it takes about 12 positive experiences to make up for one unresolved negative experience. So follow the benefits and lessons mentioned above to make sure that you provide exceptional customer support in order to retain your SaaS clients.