8 Pillars of Self-Service to Improve Customer Service in the SaaS Industry

Did you know that the SaaS industry is expected to grow to over $396 Billion in 2021? – Gartner

SaaS companies are popping up and thriving all over the world. As SaaS companies grow and expand, they face a greater need to support customers regularly; this needs to grow and adapt as the number of customers increases and market changes, which means that customer support teams need to grow and adapt. In addition, customer service is a huge part of SaaS companies, so this growth could bring more customer service problems.

Customers have become smarter in finding your products and service themselves by searching for a product, but their journey doesn’t end there. They are expecting a lot from your company, and if you fail to deliver or do not show up in their searches, they will find another company that can give them what they want. And one of the biggest requirements is a customer service knowledge base. Customers no longer want to rely on agents and wait in long queues for resolution.

Did you know 81% of the customers try to resolve their query on their own by searching for the product videos, knowledge base, etc., on the internet before reaching out to a customer support agent?

And with the pandemic, this number seems to be increasing. Most companies have already adopted self-service tools like chatbots, virtual assistants, and knowledge base software to accommodate the growing gravitation towards self-service. Some Saas companies have gone one step ahead and even made their product a self-sign-up. 

You must be thinking, why this sudden gravitation towards self-service?

But before we tell you that, let me tell you what you mean by a self-service model.

What is a self-service model?

In software-as-a-service (SaaS), a self-service model lets users and customers use the software without going through the entire sales cycle. Instead, they can directly sign-up from the portal and integrate with their other stacks by accessing the portal guide system and knowledge base. In addition, it allows users to try new features and pay for additional users before IT creates and supports new resources. 

With a self-service customer support system, a business can automate their customer support service by using knowledge base software, chatbots, and virtual assistants to help them resolve their queries. This filters out all repetitive customer support calls, reducing the huge call load towards the agents and even reducing the customer’s wait time. In addition, with a self-service customer support system in place, agents focus on critical cases.

Or put, it allows users to use the solution and resolve their queries on their own.

Now that we know what a self-service model is, let us tell you why this sudden allure of the self-service model for customer support or, in other words, the 8 pillars of the self-service model for improving customer support in the SaaS industry.

8 pillars of Self-service for improving customer support

The customer service process is one of the most important aspects of running a successful business. If your customer support is not evolving with the market’s growing need, you won’t be able to sustain profits, and you’ll eventually lose customers. Here are 8 pillars of self-service that can improve customer service in the SaaS industry.

The 8 pillars are as follows:

#1. Self-sign up

Users of SaaS are looking for flexibility these days when it comes to signing up and getting started with their applications. Unfortunately, multiple redirections usually irk the customers and decrease customer satisfaction drastically.

Not only that, but that goes double for the logging-in process. Preferences may vary depending on what business sector you’re dealing with or where your users happen to be located geographically. Some people want Single Sign-On (SSO), while others might prefer Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) or password less logins. A self-service model allowing users to self-sign and authenticate can lead a long way in this step.

#2. No agents required for Self-Onboarding

Nowadays, online service providers have to offer their customers the option of using self-help tools to complete the onboarding process. This step is very crucial in a buying journey. If the customer feels any challenges during onboarding, they might drop the onboarding process leading to low completion rates.

But, a self-serve onboarding approach can lead to completion rates of over 40%.

#3. Knowledge base software

Creating a knowledge base for your product is a “customer satisfaction” recipe.  A survey run by Zendesk showed that 91% of customers would use an online knowledge base if it were tailored to their needs. And today, almost 15% of startups fail due to not addressing their customers’ needs. And that’s a pretty bad rate, so it’s important to get your documentation right and available on the web.

There are tons of scalable tools, such as Document360, which can be used to create a knowledge base that can help to reduce customer support tickets and increase satisfaction.

#4. Virtual bot support

Virtual bots integrated with the platform are another self-service customer support tool to guide users to use the knowledge base, use the product, or resolve their queries on the platform. Moreover, customers prefer using a chatbot or a virtual assistant during any emergency rather than chatting with an agent. Don’t believe us. Here are numbers to support this; A recent study showed that 37% of people prefer using a customer service bot to get a quick answer in case of an emergency.

#5. No-wait time

One of the best benefits of self-service customer support or adoption is that customers do not have to go through huge wait lines to resolve their queries.

If we get our coffee in under 10 mins? 

Why wait for hours to get a product or resolve any product-based queries. 

Self-service solutions like knowledge base software and virtual bots provide instant gratification, which the customers expect.

#6. 24/7/365 days support

Do you know why customers mainly prefer a self-service customer support system?

Don’t have the answer?

Don’t worry, let us show you the answer through a recent market survey showing that 64% of customers feel 24-hour service is the best feature of self-service solutions like chatbot and knowledge base software. 

#7. Analytics

As a SaaS business, it’s sometimes hard to know exactly where to focus. There are so many potential opportunities like subscription, users, etc., that often programmers neglect one area as they work on others.

But all in all, taking time out to maintain these different areas of SaaS development and enhance things by enabling self-service model analytics will pay off in the end because if everything continues to be streamlined, you’ll end up serving your customers better and making more money overall. And let’s face it – you can use all the help you can get when it comes to boosting engagement, so consider adding usage reports, point-of-sale figures, and benchmarks into your planning process.

#8. Manage subscription

While we’re at it, the need to upsell is one of the biggest growth strategies used within business environments for SaaS applications. Upselling increases revenue by attaching and applying additional plans to each account to generate more usage out of the app. 

Each type of ad-on attachment comes with features and functions such as billing and invoicing, but many teams forget about the benefits of self-sign tools when they have leveled off their product sales, and there isn’t much space to expand upon. 

You can reduce involuntary churn with dunning management while keeping accuracy 100% with your account information. As a result, you can prevent billing issues and things like failed payments due to outdated credit card information, automated suspension caused by pesky technical declines, or updating customers who haven’t provided updated PII in a long time.

Parting words

Platforms must provide people with information and help them as much as possible. And self-service software precisely helps with that. They can get the answers to customers’ questions without needing to talk to anyone.

This self-service strategy is beneficial to everyone, especially customers and the customer support team, in several ways: 

Firstly, it frees up resources that otherwise would be used for keeping track of many customer interactions. 

Secondly, it reduces cost by making sure a customer is always guided gently through the essential steps needed to set up their account. 

And lastly, it increases customer satisfaction because the customer feels like they have just had an excellent experience with the platform you have chosen – giving that awesome feeling of empowerment that we all love.

Saravana Kumar is the Founder & CEO of Kovai.co a company that is into Enterprise Software and Knowledge Management Space. He has grown the company from a single-person entity to 240+ employees with 5 revenue-generating products contributing an ARR of over $10MN. Under his dynamic leadership, the company has won several awards from renowned bodies like SaaSBoomi, The Economic Times & Nasscom.