Increased Efficiency, Profitability and Customer Loyalty Top List as Motivators for Moving to a SaaS Model
Customer Service Experience, Webinars 5 Comments
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SupportIndustry.com’s 2009 Service and Support Metrics Survey Results: A Look Behind the Scenes in Today’s Support Organization, which was sponsored by Parature Inc. and surveyed senior-level service and support professionals, revealed the top motivators for moving to a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) model. These motivators include eliminating the need for staff to maintain in-house systems (27%), increased efficiency (25%), increased profitability (16%) and greater customer satisfaction and loyalty (14%).
It is benefits such as these that have CRM and support departments turning to on-demand models to benefit the enterprise. According to the survey, 43% of respondents have leveraged SaaS-based models for at least some of their service-related technology deployments, while 32% say they plan some kind of SaaS-based deployment in the coming year.
Why the move? SaaS solutions offer a variety of robust features without the headache of maintaining the system and server. Many companies offering these services have now been around for awhile, taking away some of the fears about vendor longevity and effectively addressing concerns such as security and scalability.
Market data also supports the move to the SaaS model. According to analyst group Gartner, Inc., the worldwide market for SaaS is forecast to reach $9.6 billion in 2009, which represents a 21.9% increase over 2008 revenue of $6.6 billion. Growth will continue over the next several years with projected revenue to reach $16 billion by 2013.
To view the full results of the 2009 Service and Support Metrics Survey, click on any of the following options:
- Watch Webinar 2009 Service and Support Metrics Survey Results: A Look Behind the Scenes in Today’s Support Organization
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The SaaS model is a definitely a great option for many companies. However, for those that already have the necessary Web system infrastructure that can be leveraged or have stringent control/security concerns, licensing the software and running it on their own infrastructure may be their most effective and efficient option.
Also, could you please clarify why people think that running in a SaaS model impacts their ability towards “greater customer satisfaction and loyalty?”
Shilo: You make a good point – while the SaaS model is on the rise, it is not a solution for every company. Those who have invested significant time and money into a web infrastructure such as the one you described would not have a need to implement a hosted model.
As for the survey, we did not ask respondents why they choose one option over another, but just to choose the factor that best fit their situation. However, in my opinion, one reason that this response was chosen could be that these individuals had effectively implemented a customer service/support model (using a Saas vendor) in their organization and had achieved an increase in overall customer satisfaction. As a result of increased satisfaction levels, they had seen these customers return for repeat business. This situation certainly happens with non-SaaS implementations as well. It just goes to show the importance of service and support to the bottom line of any organization.
Having worked support in both arenas, I’d say the increased customer satisfaction comes from several SaaS promises.
1. Never having to install, upgrade or update software again. Done right, (cloud-based) SaaS really delivers here.
2. Not having to worry about data file backup and offsite redundant storage. (again cloud)
3. Access to the application and your data anytime anywhere from any connected machine. (sure is cloudy here)
4. Less ‘hard to figure out’ local machine configuration driven issues. (overcast yet again but maybe there’s a silver lining);-)
Finally, with only having to know and support the latest SaaS version, more knowledgable support technicians, when you need assistance.
Our SaaS has support integrated instead of costly support packages we had in our stand-alone and on-site enterprise solutions and this too for some offerings may be a non-trivial factor in overall satisfaction for both the customer and the support and sales teams.
Obviously I’m currently working in a business with a SaaS offering so I’m at least a bit biased but my opinion is. Web-based SaaS offerings generally work better, more often, for more people and are competitive price-wise when you look at all angles. When there are difficulties, they are – most of the time – more easily resolved. This = happier customers and employees.
Our experience was that it ended up being much cheaper to host ourselves due to our volumes and existing infrastructure. As long as the vendor offers a traditional cost plus maintenance fee structure (15-20% per year in year 2 on) rather than the subscription model (expensive forever) offered by some of the SaaS vendors, some companies can save big money by running on their own servers.
I think that some vendors even offer both hosted and licensed so you can move to licensed later if it makes sense then.
Like just about everything, it pays to run through the numbers for your own situation.
Thanks for the useful info. It’s so interesting