Much of the focus on Software as as Service has been on differences in architecture, setup and implementation with other models like enterprise software or web 2.0. This post is not about these, instead it is about highlighting the “Service” aspect in a SaaS model.

For that I use an anecdote of Toys and batteries:

How often do we find in television commercials, print advertisements, etc. an outstanding advertisement about the newest robots (http://www.robosapienv2online.com/ ), Air Hogs that can battle each other (http://www.airhogs.com/) or even education toys like those by leapfrog (www.leapfrog.com), and at the end of the commercial/ advert, they say “batteries not included!”.

Surely, it makes sense to provide 1 set of batteries- a tiny fraction of the cost of the toy/item that goes a long way in increasing customer satisfaction!

Similarly, in Software as a Service, the key to success still lie in service quality. Sure, SaaS makes it cheaper than creating it in-house and more convenient than an enterprise solution, but the main benefit is the quality of service that it affords.

In a business environment that is increasingly competitive, it is still difficult to find a company that provides quality service and support for their customers. Yet this simple act goes a long way to keeping current customers happy, keeping businesses afloat and sales coming in.

Apply the same approach of including the “batteries” to your business in the following ways
- good customer support
- follow-up with your customers after the purchase
- trial offer/ discounts
- free bundled services/software
- could even be that Personalized Birthday Card you send to your clients
- doing things that surprise your customers.

At L2, we’re increasingly adopting this approach of “including the batteries” with lowered pricing for new customers to launch their first personalized marketing campaign with our software and improving our customer service and time to market with existing customers and their campaigns.

And with customer comments like these, it looks like we’re heading in the right direction.

“Your secret sauce is not just your code, it’s Joe and Alan and Lawrence (Operations and Lawrence is our CTO) ”

“I have some colleagues that chose another product besides Fuse and while they got alot of marketing and sales attention up front, the post-implementation support has been absent.  It’s not that way with you guys(L2)”

For more on improving customer service

See Joel on Software’s february post with 7 steps to remarkable customer service
http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/customerservice.html

And kevin Eikenberry’s post on how customer relationships can be recession busters
http://www.kevineikenberry.com/blogs/2008/04/customer-relationships-are-recession.asp