SaaS vs. Software: Customer Support
From Gartner Bloger Guy Creese's blog
While SaaS hasn’t radically changed support mechanisms for enterprise software, it’s fair to say it has accelerated earlier trends.
Way back when, customer support was a very high touch experience (and expensive for the vendor): e.g., printed manuals and 24×7 telephone support. Over time, vendors looked to expand the support network and make it less expensive. For example, product certification became the rage–it expanded the number of people who could fix a problem, and vendors brought in money from the certification process. Good FAQs on web pages decreased the number of calls into the support center. Microsoft started up MSDN, sending loads of software and documentation out to customers on CDs for a fee. Product forums became a place where customers could talk among themselves to solve their own problems without having to bother the vendor.
SaaS continues the drive to make support a low touch experience (and less expensive for the vendor). Online forums have proliferated, and the documentation has migrated online as well. Rather than the telephone being the primary support channel for SaaS solutions, now it’s often the secondary or tertiary channel.
Having many customers for a product opens up other support avenues. I remember talking to a very satisfied Google Apps customer in the UK, and his interesting reply when I asked about Google Apps support (which is usually a sore subject, since it’s not always easy to find an answer to your specific problem on the support forums). He said, “Oh, I rarely use the support forums. I just get on Twitter, and someone usually tweets me the answer in 20 minutes or so.”
As the network effect kicks in for highly popular SaaS solutions, I would not be surprised to see both vendors and users leveraging more micro-blogging/social networking support mechanisms.
While SaaS hasn’t radically changed support mechanisms for enterprise software, it’s fair to say it has accelerated earlier trends.
Way back when, customer support was a very high touch experience (and expensive for the vendor): e.g., printed manuals and 24×7 telephone support. Over time, vendors looked to expand the support network and make it less expensive. For example, product certification became the rage–it expanded the number of people who could fix a problem, and vendors brought in money from the certification process. Good FAQs on web pages decreased the number of calls into the support center. Microsoft started up MSDN, sending loads of software and documentation out to customers on CDs for a fee. Product forums became a place where customers could talk among themselves to solve their own problems without having to bother the vendor.
SaaS continues the drive to make support a low touch experience (and less expensive for the vendor). Online forums have proliferated, and the documentation has migrated online as well. Rather than the telephone being the primary support channel for SaaS solutions, now it’s often the secondary or tertiary channel.
Having many customers for a product opens up other support avenues. I remember talking to a very satisfied Google Apps customer in the UK, and his interesting reply when I asked about Google Apps support (which is usually a sore subject, since it’s not always easy to find an answer to your specific problem on the support forums). He said, “Oh, I rarely use the support forums. I just get on Twitter, and someone usually tweets me the answer in 20 minutes or so.”
As the network effect kicks in for highly popular SaaS solutions, I would not be surprised to see both vendors and users leveraging more micro-blogging/social networking support mechanisms.
Social Media Stats
Tools & Resources
© 2012 Created by GovLoop.
