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  • 3 ways our SaaS users took me by surprise

    Kuba Gaj
    5 replies
    Running a SaaS platform requires constant adjustments. Every new user means new feedback and insight, and if you care about staying relevant, you’re going to take their words into consideration — especially if the improvement will give you a leg up over your competition 1. Users are much more likely to give you feedback than you think. We do encourage leaving us feedback in many different places. We mention that on our website, in our newsletter, and on the platform itself. I didn’t put too much faith into that, but our users really want to share their thoughts. Not only do they say what needs improvement, but also give us ideas for new functionalities. And more than that, they appreciate being heard. Moreover, we make sure to note down everything of importance from each conversation & demo call with clients. We ask them: what they liked about the product, what made them interested in the first place, what kind of business problems they wanted to solve, and what’s currently missing. We note down the answers in the spreadsheet — later on, we can analyze them and figure out any patterns, which is particularly useful for Strategy and Development meetings. And if clients themselves want to reach out to us, we make that as simple as possible. They can do so via live chat on our website, email, or join our Discord server. 2. Onboarding new clients is extremely difficult. As a passionate gamer, I should have seen that one coming. After all, how many times did I skip the tutorial on the first run-through? And then I had to go back because we didn’t get the controls? I think we are all guilty of that. We don’t want to be led by hand as if we were some kids; we want to get right into action. So yes, users are more likely to rage-click all over the platform instead of going through the onboarding. No matter how funny or interesting the onboarding is, your users will want to skip it. It must be some kind of an instinct. That’s why it’s so important for your platform to be as intuitive and easy as possible, while your demo content should be short and sweet. Because if your user doesn’t find what they’re looking for quickly enough, they’ll simply leave. And never come back. 3. They do want a community. Just not where you think. Could you believe it when I say that SaaS users actually want to join an online community? I wouldn’t have believed that, too. When we created our Slack community, there were few users and even smaller engagement. We assumed that people are simply not interested in having a direct connection to our team. But once we moved the community to Discord, people kept signing up. More than that — they actually used it, mentioning bugs and asking questions about the platform or features to be implemented. I consider that a success. What’s best about Discord, is how you can organize your server. You can create separate spaces for users to report bugs and feature requests, as well as stay informed on the news and changes. From a client’s perspective, that’s much more attractive than a simple Facebook group or a newsletter. From ours, having everything in one place is heavenly. Although, when it comes to bugs — for some reason, users prefer to DM us anyway. Heads up: be ready to see some interesting nicknames!

    Replies

    Ben Bellerose
    I like the discord idea here for creating a community for a SaaS product
    Kuba Gaj
    @ben_bellerose I was hesitant at first, as I perceived Discord as a platform that is being used by youngers and mostly for fun, and that professionals wouldn't use it. It turned out I was completely wrong ;-).
    Jacob Carlson
    Smooth onboarding processes are often overlooked. They are one of those things that if you do it well you don't even realize you have done it. At my old start up job we had a very manual process of onboarding people which made the experience worse
    Kuba Gaj
    @imjncarlson I am really interested in ideas for onboarding processes that actually works. So far we tried two approaches: 1. Appcues-like onboarding, but users mostly skip it right after it shows. 2. Demo content that explains the platform a bit better At some point we mixed both of them, but as we check some of the recordings from Microsoft Clarity, it seems like most people just don't care about them at all.
    Jacob Carlson
    @qbagaj Interesting. If people are skipping onboarding right away/don't care about it then maybe your product is self explanatory? Not sure One onboarding process that I liked was a serious of forms and videos. At the end of the process it made you schedule a meeting with a representative before giving you access to the product. That way if questions/issues arise there was already time booked on the calendar. This was for a medical product though so it might not be relevant in your case