What makes a business stand out in today's competitive landscape? It's not just the product—it's the experience you provide to your customers. According to statistics, 73% of companies with above-average client experience show better financial results than their competitors. While companies often try to save costs on customer support, superior service fosters long-term client loyalty. In fact, 42% of B2C customers and 62% of B2B consumers have made additional purchases from companies with excellent customer service. For SaaS businesses, customer support is crucial as it helps convert users into paying clients and ensures they remain satisfied with the product.
How to deliver great SaaS customer service
The foundation of successful SaaS customer support lies in having a solid strategy. A strategic approach allows you to build a team that meets your business objectives. However, exceptional customer service involves more than hiring experienced agents and providing training. You need three core components: skilled agents, the right tools, and comprehensive customer resources.
Excellent agents
Building a great customer success team is one of the most important investments. Great support agents should have technical skills and be willing to learn and solve problems. Your team should also know your product inside and out. A good choice would be a remote support team. It will ensure round-the-clock support and provide you with a competitive advantage.
The main benefit of hiring a dedicated support team is the ability to understand the target audience better. This data would be useful for your sales and marketing departments to create a client persona. Thus, once customer service representatives discover the clients who are the best fit for your product, you will be able to reach out to them more effectively. Moreover, the cooperation between sales and support teams will result in improved client experience, more appropriate offers, and pricing.
Right tools
The right support software is the second element of great customer service. It is one of the most important resources that ensures the effective work of support agents. The right customer success support software speeds up communication, helps your company gain more referrals, and boosts efficiency. The appropriate software contributes to client satisfaction and loyalty, saves time, and increases productivity. The best 2024 software services include Freshdesk, LiveAgent, HubSpot, Zoho Desk, Zendesk, Help Scout, Groove, and Salesforce Sales Cloud.
Customer resources
Good customer service SaaS requires investing in your company’s website. Some consumers prefer to resolve issues on their own. Sometimes the support is unavailable. In these cases, you can simplify the tasks for your team and invest in the resources that will allow your clients to find the necessary information. Customer resources may include a help center, FAQ section, and information about pricing and making a purchase.
Your customer service team can keep track of the most frequent questions. Then the marketing department can create articles on the most popular topics. In addition, you can encourage clients to write feedback on the articles to make resolving problems more intuitive.
Customer support SaaS channels
Before defining the main channels to provide the best service, you need to determine your target audience and then focus your resources there.
Email
Email is one of the most widely used channels for online businesses. According to statistics, 73% of millennials prefer emailing with businesses. It does not require large investments and it is easy to use. It is better to send emails using a personal name instead of the company’s address. This will make your interactions seem friendlier and less corporate.
Social networks
Another great channel is social networks. More than half of the world’s population uses social networks on a daily basis. Social media greatly impacts a company’s success — the most active users of Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and other platforms are people aged between 24 and 35. These people are the world’s most powerful consumers. This is a strong argument for using social media as part of your SaaS customer support model.
Phone
Although the phone is considered an old-fashioned support channel, most consumers still prefer this approach. If your target audience includes older people, the phone would be a great choice. People in their 40s use their phones for their direct purpose more often than millennials and perceive it as a more open way of communication. The advantages of using a phone over other communication channels also include immediate answers and convenience.
Live chat
Live chat is a relatively new client support channel, but it ensures client loyalty, and increases lead conversion and revenue. Live chat is convenient and fast. Customers often consider live chat one of the most important features of a website because they can reach for help in the middle of the purchasing process. This method of communication helps to address the problems more effectively. People can upload images or screenshots, and your support team will be able to understand the problem better. Moreover, live chat can be automated to provide solutions to problems faster.
Self-service knowledge base
An online knowledge base allows for providing round-the-clock service even if your team is small. A self-service knowledge base is an effective way of providing support when other channels are unavailable. With the help of the knowledge base, clients can solve the most common issues related to billing or products. You can use the self-service base to ease the onboarding process for new clients.
Outsource to highly-skilled team
Outsourcing to a well-trained team is one of the best practices for SaaS customer success. You get a ready team, 24/7 support, and a lot of spare time to focus on growing your business.
Benefits of outsourcing SaaS customer service:
optimized costs;
improved efficiency;
better coverage;
access to the latest technology;
increased customer satisfaction;
ability to focus on core responsibilities.
You should consider outsourcing if your team cannot handle the volume of inquiries, you cannot provide help 24/7 and you are focusing more on servicing clients than improving your products.
Simply Contact has extensive experience helping companies across various industries optimize their customer service through outsourcing. One of our clients in the technology sector significantly improved customer satisfaction rates from 0% to 75% by outsourcing to our 24/7 support team, which handled over 20,000 calls daily. This allowed their in-house team to focus on core business growth without sacrificing service quality.
Explore how Simply Contact can help you provide exceptional customer service while focusing on what matters most.
Choosing an outsourcing partner is never easy. Thousands of companies worldwide have great portfolios, extensive experience, and hundreds of good reviews. To implement SaaS customer support best practices and hire the best team, you need to follow a number of simple steps.
Consider the location
Eastern Europe, Central America, and South Asia are the most common locations for outsourcing. If you are looking for English-speaking agents, Eastern Europe is the best choice. Additional factors to consider are political stability, literacy rates, and technological infrastructure.
Check the company’s reputation
When choosing a professional outsourcing partner, it is essential to consider the company’s relevant industry experience and expertise in your field. The company should be familiar with the client’s concerns, your product, and your culture.
Learn about quality control
Find out how the company deals with angry clients. The company should provide reports and call recordings to maintain visibility. You can ask to provide the reports or recorded calls.
Analyze the security risks
Working with client issues and personal information always involves security risks. To reduce the risks of information exposure, you need to check the company’s security protocols and find out who has access to the network.
Find information about employees
The company’s hiring process and training information can also be useful when looking for an outsourcing partner. Outsourcing companies often involve shared agents who work with different companies. Sometimes it can create difficulties because the agents cannot study your product in detail and provide specific answers to the client's questions. In this case, you need to hire dedicated agents. They would focus on your product, culture, and brand, integrate into your team, and develop a deeper understanding of your company.
How to manage an outsourced team
A few tips will help you manage a team of outsourced workers from anywhere in the world.
Monitor quality
The quality metrics will help you to analyze whether you are moving in the right direction with your outsourcing partners. The metrics that allow for the evaluation of the quality of service include customer satisfaction score, average speed of answering, customer effort score, average handle time, and first-call resolution.
To help you get the most out of your outsourcing efforts, we’ve put together a comprehensive guide with the best tips and common pitfalls in outsourcing customer service.
To make the most of your collaboration with the outsourcing partners, provide guides, manuals, training videos, and other additional information about your company and product. The brand tone also plays a great role in the communication process, so you must develop possible communication scenarios and make a list of phrases to avoid.
Establish communication
Communication with your outsourcing team is crucial for your business's overall productivity. Communication can help you gain insights into your business, identify weak spots, and improve your current situation. You can supervise and manage your tasks using Skype, Zoom, and Trello.
Work with professionals
Partnering with a skilled and knowledgeable outsourcing team can significantly improve your customer service operations. It's important to choose a team that understands the technical aspects and aligns with your company’s goals and values.
Partner with leading SaaS customer service provider
At Simply Contact, we help you implement best practices that enhance support efficiency, drive customer satisfaction, and reduce churn. From proactive communication to seamless integrations, our solutions ensure your customers get the best experience—every time.
