StartupTalky

Tag: business

  • Best Telephony Software

    Business communication has evolved over the years. Today, companies are replacing their conventional phone systems with modern communication technology known as Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP). A VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) phone system is an internet-based telephony system that delivers voice calls, video calls, and multimedia using internet connectivity.

    Unlike analog phone systems, VoIP phone systems do not require any dedicated phone hardware. It allows the user to call any landline, mobile or even computer-to-computer with an internet-connected laptop, PC, mobile or tablet. Being a cloud-based technology, VoIP has revolutionized the communication infrastructure across all business sectors. It easily integrates chats, syncs applications, and provides real-time call data and analytics; thus enhancing organizational productivity. In short, the emergence of VoIP has changed the name and face of business communication.

    Top Telephony Service Providers

    Here, we have covered some of the  top telephony service providers that can help your business. So, let’s dive in.

    AVOXI Genius

    Telephony software, also known as Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) uses internet-enabled devices to make and receive phone calls. With AVOXI, your VoIP number setup is fast and easy. There are no setup fees or minimum contracts. Every VoIP number includes 20+ features at no additional cost. Get your virtual phone number today for as low as $4.49 per month.

    Avoxi Genius
    Avoxi Genius

    Avoxi Core Cloud PBX is a voice technology system that enables use of legacy systems while decreasing hardware investment and maintenance. The cloud-based system serves the following industries: energy, finance, hospitality, insurance, manufacturing, media and entertainment, nonprofit, retail and transportation. Multiple gateways can accommodate an increase in the number of phone lines as businesses grow. Customer features include a 24/7 support team and password protected access to a secure web where users can view all call detail records.

    Also read:

    CloudTalk

    CloudTalk is a telephony system built for modern companies. CloudTalk simplifies the lives of your sales and customer support teams with 70+ advanced calling features. Improve communication with prospects thanks to the integration with your existing helpdesk, CRM and eCommerce systems as Helpscout, Pipedrive or Shopify.

    Cloud Talk
    Cloud Talk

    CloudTalk is a fully featured Call Center Software designed to serve Agencies, SMEs. CloudTalk provides end-to-end solutions designed for Macintosh. This online Call Center system offers Queue Management, Predictive Dialer, Call Recording, Contact Management, VoIP at one place.
    Price: CloudTalk pricing starts at $15.00 per month, per user. There is not a free version of CloudTalk.

    Aircall

    Aircall is the cloud-based phone system of choice for modern brands of 3+ users. By seamlessly integrating with the most popular CRM and Helpdesk tools, they help sales and support teams communicate clearly and efficiently. Admins can instantly add numbers from 100+ countries, scale their teams according to seasonality, and gain deep insights through real time analytics. Accessible by desktop and mobile app, Aircall is trusted by over 3000 companies worldwide. Aircall is the modern phone solution for sales and support teams.

    Air call
    Aircall

    It is very user friendly and easy to use and setup and integrate with other software, web apps and services when building and testing a UC – Unified Communications Contact Center or OmniChannel.
    Price: Essentials Plan – $30/user per month, billed annually and Professional Plan – $50/user per month, billed annually. Free Trial available.

    Freshcaller

    Freshcaller is a cloud PBX system that enables you to purchase local and toll-free phone numbers in 90+ countries. Engage in contextual conversations with your callers without any hardware nor maintenance costs. Freshcaller is the ideal call center and business phone system for startups and small teams. With Freshcaller businesses can choose to record all their phone conversations and allow supervisors access to live dashboards and even listen and speak to customers in real-time.

    freshcaller
    freshcaller

    As a phone system designed for teams with little/no IT support, Freshcaller allows users to create a new account in minutes and configure rules, business hours, and routing processes that are executed in real-time. Freshcaller enables businesses to scale their usage effortlessly by adding agent licenses, purchasing additional numbers or phone credits, and changing their pricing plan at any time.
    Price: Freshcaller pricing starts at $19.00 per month, per user. There is a free version of Freshcaller available.

    Must read:

    Jive Voice

    Jive voice
    Jive voice

    Give your business a professional boost with Jive Voice. A cloud-based, feature-rich business phone system, Jive helps thousands of organizations across all industries and sizes to streamline their communications and achieve greater success. Jive Hosted VoIP offers a wide array of features designed to replace legacy landline phones, including unlimited voicemail boxes, auto attendants, and local and long-distance phone numbers.
    Starting Price: $19.95/month/user (Free Trial available).

    MyOperator

    MyOperator is a cloud-based business phone system providing solutions like virtual phone numbers (toll free/non-tollfree), IVR, call management features like call tracking, call recording, live call transfer, callers’ database, virtual receptionist and more. It extends the reach of your business 24*7 and routes calls to the right departments for a faster point resolution. It doesn’t require any hardware or software installation. This thereby helps save installation and additional infrastructural costs required while scaling up.

    MyOperator
    MyOperator

    Also, it allows you to work anywhere and anytime. All your phone calls, be it the ones you made, received or missed are tracked. This not only helps you upgrade your customers’ experience but also ensures that no prospect is lost. Facebook and SMS remarketing are the ways that MyOperator offers to help you reconnect with your callers and repeat purchase.
    Price: There are 3 plans available – Office IVR System (Rs. 2,300/month), Cloud Call Center – Desk (Rs. 5,000/month), and Cloud Call Center – Prime (Rs. 20,000/month).

    Flowroute

    Flowroute, the first software-centric carrier, provides communication services and technology for cloud-based platforms. By providing businesses with programmatic access to communications infrastructure services, Flowroute removes the complexity of introducing new communications solutions to the market.

    Flowroute
    Flowroute

    The patented nationwide Flowroute HyperNetwork delivers leading carrier-quality calling and messaging services with unparalleled reliability, reach, and simplicity. Flowroute is a fully featured VOIP Software designed to serve Agencies, Startups. Flowroute provides end-to-end solutions designed for Web App. This online VOIP system offers SIP Trunking at one place.
    Price: Flowroute is a pay as you go SIP Trunking service. There is not a free version of Flowroute. Flowroute does not offer a free trial.

    Relevant read:

    JustCall

    JustCall is a cloud-based phone system that allows businesses to collect phone numbers from 58 countries and make them appear as local digits to their clients. JustCall gives you the platform you need to manage your international customers in a unified location, communicate with them with a simple and straightforward solution.

    JustCall
    JustCall

    JustCall is a cloud phone system that integrates with your CRM or Helpdesk. Make, receive and log all your phone calls and texts directly from your CRM/Helpdesk dashboard.  Using different call distribution settings, you will never miss a customer support call ever. Give easy ways to your customers to reach relevant departments, allow them to remain in queue while waiting for an agent to come on the call or even give them an option to leave voicemails. Apart from basic contact center software solution, JustCall also provides other useful tools like Bulk SMS Campaigns, SMS Bots, Auto Dialer, Predictive Dialer, Dynamic Number Insertion etc.
    Price: There are two plans – Standard ($25/user/month) and Premium ($50/user/month).

    Conclusion

    Telephony Software includes many telecommunication features, from recording calls to creating a complete call center environment. Selecting the best software depends on your needs but the above list can serve as a reference. The software works as a fully featured telephone switch connecting to phone lines and extensions using state-of-the-art virtual PBX and VoIP technology. If you know about any other tool, please let us know in the comments section below.

  • Best Document Management Software

    Document management (DM) software encompasses a wide range of features and functionalities, many of which are critical to effectively running a business. Many small to midsize businesses (SMBs), such as legal firms, creative firms, or media and publishing organizations, aim to go paperless and are looking for the right tool to do so. Businesses generate a lot of data regardless, so choosing a reliable and scalable DM system is key to streamlining and automating workflows.

    For SaaS companies, an efficient DM system can make better overall performance for several reasons. The most basic reason is having a place to store and organize documents. Version control, workflows, access permissions, backup, and data protection can also be handled by a DM solution. It is the starting point for storing, securing, and sharing various business documents. The ability to classify data is another DM capability that can completely change the way your organization maps its workflows.

    Top Document Management Software

    Here, you’ll get to know below the 10 best document management systems that can help you go digital, automated, and paperless.

    Confluence

    Confluence is an open and shared workspace that connects people to the ideas and information they need to build momentum and do their best work. Unlike document and file-sharing tools, Confluence is open and collaborative, helping you create, manage, and collaborate on anything from product launch plans to marketing campaigns. Today all kinds of functional departments of any size use Confluence, from technical teams and project management groups, to marketing, HR, legal, and finance. All teams get work done with Confluence.

    Confluence
    Confluence

    With Confluence you have an environment that is very efficient to work in to add new content, very easy to update articles and manage file attachments. Setting up spaces for various audiences, including a “personal space” allows you to draft documents privately and then move the document over into a space with an audience. The permission scheme is based on spaces, individuals and groups, with flexibility from super-locked-down to wide open on the public internet.

    Price: Confluence pricing starts at $10.00 per month, per user. Confluence does offer a free trial.

    Also read:

    Templafy

    Templafy
    Templafy

    Templafy is one of the best document management tools out there. The system aims to integrate essential office suites and solutions used by businesses on a daily basis. If there’s one thing that can be frustrating, it’s having to create brand documents using different software. This can become time-consuming and fragmented, but Templafy can help. With it, you can create a range of files within the system and manage them from a single feed.

    The software is compatible with a range of devices and uses the cloud to let you access all your documents across computers, tablets and smartphones. There are also automatic compliance checks, and you can give feedback to employees easily, too.

    Price: Contact is required for a pricing quote, and not surprisingly, the exact cost depends on the number of users, features and add-ons chosen.

    PandaDoc

    PandaDoc is a leading online document management platform that lets you create, deliver, and share documents online. It allows for legally binding e-signatures and supports various document formats like PDFs, Docs, and other preexisting digital documents for faster paperless transactions and processes. The software works well with quotes, contracts, agreements, and other sales collateral, and is ideal for use by your HR, sales, marketing, finance, legal, and operations departments. For that matter, any business or organization can reap the benefits of document management software like PandaDoc in terms of document building, sharing, and delivery.

    PandaDoc
    PandaDoc

    The software is an all-around document management platform that enables you to sign documents anywhere at any time with the built-in e-signature function. It comes with a robust but easy to use document creator with drag and drop editor, allowing you to quickly come up with all kinds of business documents such as proposals, business plans, contracts, and quotes, among others.

    NetDocuments

    NetDocuments has been the leader in cloud-based document management since 1999, helping firms to reduce costs and increase productivity with enterprise search, built-in disaster recovery, client, matter, and project-centric workspaces, and any time access on a modern platform that scales to both small and large firms alike.

    NetDocuments
    NetDocuments

    It’s powerful, cloud-based document management system helps your firm effectively store, create and categorize your documents and email. Collaboration tools allow you to easily share individual documents or even entire folders securely with your clients and experts. NetDocuments has made big strides in reliability and customer focus and these areas need to continue to be developed as they were not strong suits in years past.

    Relevant read:

    Dropbox Business

    Dropbox Business is a central workspace that helps teams stay organized and keep their work flowing. All your team’s content is in one place, making it easy to collaborate and focus on the work that matters. Dropbox Business is trusted by over 300,000 business teams worldwide and over 50% of the Fortune 500 for its industry leading file sync, collaboration, and extensive administration and security features that scale as teams grow. Companies of all sizes use Dropbox Business for collaboration, file sharing, online backup, and more.

    Dropbox Business
    Dropbox Business

    Dropbox is a great program to integrate with other programs such as Adobe PDF. It is incredibly easy to save all of your sales proposals straight onto the dropbox app from your iPad Adobe PDF app which saves you time and energy. My number one favorite feature in Dropbox is the ability to share a link to a file with clients and have them make comments right on the file.

    If you’re sharing a video, they can comment at exact spots in the video, and they can markup graphic files. Additionally, Dropbox saves you an incredible amount of time in the office, as you no longer have to request files from various members of your design team. With your shared Dropbox folders, everyone can access everything, and with version control, nothing is ever lost.

    M-Files

    M-Files is an intelligent platform designed to help businesses manage, organize, and track documents and information. It can be used by both small and large companies in a variety of industries. This wide applicability is made possible by a host of features that are bound to benefit any organization such as mobile optimization, version control, e-signature support, document templates, offline access, permission control, and automated workflows. It is equipped with a search engine for finding documents based on document type, names, and keywords, among others. It even lets you search inside the text of documents.

    M-Files
    M-Files

    The solution offers workflow automation capabilities and notifies you whenever document changes need review or approval. Likewise, you can send invites and edit documents simultaneously with its co-authoring feature. M-Files also offers enterprise-grade information management functionality, allowing you to securely share information with stakeholders or team members. The software integrates with leading CRM and office solutions and is available through quote-based pricing.

    Docuware

    Docuware takes a cloud-based approach to document management. It integrates cloud storage and office automation to create a digital workplace. This paperless approach to the full spectrum of office tasks is another example of the digital transformation which is driving many processes these days.

    Docuware
    Docuware

    Docuware offers services to create a ‘cloud workflow’ when it comes to documents. It allows services to be purchased on a small scale as needed, and then as use-case scenarios are created, and reliability is ensured, the service can be scaled up for a larger deployment. Mobile apps that can integrate into this workflow are also offered, facilitating the likes of scanning receipts on the go, approving invoices for speedy payment, and signing forms directly on the device.

    Must read:

    Box

    Box works in any browser and allows you to easily store and manage all your content online. It also lets you share files instantly and access documents from anywhere. No matter what device you choose, get fast, easy access to documents, project plans, presentations and videos. Always have the latest pitch for your customers, on or offline. Box makes it easy for administrators to maintain a central view of all content and users in their account through a powerful admin console.

    Box
    Box

    There are many things to love about Box. For one, its Business plans come with unlimited storage! It’s worth the price especially for small to medium-sized businesses looking for a secure place for storage with tons of extra features for both admin and security. The 5GB upload is enough for the big multimedia and other iso/archive files. For your admin, the integration with your Active Directory saves you from having to require your users to create/maintain an extra account (user/password) for Box. The corporate logo can also be incorporated into the platform to make it personalized according to your company’s branding scheme. Box also offers a ton of possible integrations eg Google Suite (e.g., docs), Salesforce (CRM), and MS Office 365. This makes it easy for users to create content as your usual platforms and then easily save and manage them in Box.

    Price: Box pricing starts at $5.00 per month, per user. There is a free version of Box and Box does offer a free trial.

    Zoho Forms

    Zoho Forms is an online form builder perfect for all business sizes. It helps you create and manage online forms by using a variety of field types and customizable themes. You can start from scratch or choose from the many templates available. The form creator tools, which include an automated calculation field, are also handy in personalizing payment forms. Plus, you can connect your forms to secure payment solutions like Paypal, 2Checkout, and more.

    Zoho forms
    Zoho forms

    The application also supports multi-page forms. By simply adding a page break, you can add and rearrange pages in your forms as needed. Page rules can also be modified to help your respondents navigate to specific pages based on their answers. Moreover, you can use email campaigns, QR codes, and links to share your forms on social media, or you can embed the forms on your website.

    Samepage

    Samepage is an award-winning project collaboration software that brings you collaborative tools, communications solutions, and document management capabilities in one cloud-hosted platform. It’s all about productivity, which Samepage lets you achieve through features and capabilities that include team chat, video conferencing, task management, file sharing, real-time document collaboration, and more. The software is designed to help teams of all sizes manage projects and get more done in a single easy-to-use workspace.

    Samepage
    Samepage

    This comprehensive collaboration solution for business teams gives you functionalities such as scheduling, discussion topics, meeting agendas, files, instant messages, conversations, and task lists. It is ideal for companies and organizations such as educational and non-profit organizations, marketing firms, and real estate agencies. It can be implemented across teams of employees, vendors, partners, consultants, and customers and lets you compile files, images, videos, conversations, and maps, allowing you to maximize the advantages of a collaboration platform.

    Conclusion

    Document management software automates the process of creating, uploading, storing, tracking, and archiving files. It helps users share documents, track comments and changes, and store documents in a centralized repository. To sum up, there’s a wide variety of document management systems that you can choose from. So, you shouldn’t worry about not finding a good option for your operations. Above softwares includes both standalone systems, and broader software suites that offer core document management functionality in addition to other features. You can choose a software that caters to your needs. If you know about some other document management software, please let us know in the comments section below.

  • Tips to Sell your SaaS Product?

    SaaS is a billion-dollar industry. And it’s only going to get bigger. According to TechCrunch, the SaaS industry is at the same stage as “the PC market in 1983, smartphone market in 2003, or the search market in 1998.” There is no better time than now to be in SaaS. But more opportunities mean more competition. If you want to lead the pack, you need to know how to sell SaaS.

    Customer-centric selling is particularly important in the age of social media, where companies and customers engage in an ongoing public dialogue across Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, websites, and blogs. Customer-centric selling starts by encouraging potential customers to tell you about their problems. Then, it continues with guiding them down a path to the right solution. In other words, they’re going to talk about you. Building trust over time by working together leads to promote loyalty, referrals, and positive word-of-mouth. All of this translates into generating more revenue.

    Also read:

    How to Sell your SaaS Product?

    Below are a few points to keep in mind when it comes to selling SaaS products.

    Sell Solutions, Not Products

    Technology companies often struggle with the task of showing what they do for their customers into a box called ‘Product’. People check your website or contact you because they have a problem that needs to be solved. But, often, they don’t clearly understand what they want or need. It’s your job to be the expert. Asking the right questions makes selling an ongoing conversation about customer needs. Questions also help identify how far along they are on the decision path toward buying, which makes the entire process easier to track in a CRM.

    Sell Solution, not Product
    Sell Solution, not Product

    Selling solutions might not even involve making direct references to products. An example of this is ChatBot, a leading chatbot developing SaaS. It emphasizes the benefits of using ChatBot from the perspective of the end user. There is no reference to product features. Simply a clear explanation of how ChatBot can solve customer problems.

    Example of Chatbot
    Example of Chatbot

    Keep your trials short

    At first glance, you might think giving customers a long trial period for your product will increase the chances that they pay for your product. A long trial might seem like a good way to hook your customer, but you’re really just hurting your startup. For 99% of startups, trials shouldn’t be any longer than 14 days. Here’s why.

    • Most people don’t use free trials for the full duration. Take a look at your data and you’ll see that the vast majority of your trial users duck out after about three days.
    • Users take a short trial more seriously. Your prospects will procrastinate, and when they procrastinate, they forget. With a shorter trial period, they’re more likely to try your product immediately.
    • Lower customer acquisition costs. When you shorten your trial, you also shorten your sales cycle. If you’re able to shorten your sales cycle from six weeks to three, you will significantly reduce your customer acquisition costs.

    Create Feedback Loops

    When customers hit certain milestones (logging in to your platform for the hundredth time or making a repeat purchase), have your client services team check in with sales and marketing.

    Feedback Loop
    Feedback Loop

    Demonstrate the value of your products and services each step of the way:

    • Generate daily, weekly, and monthly reports on progress and activity.
    • Create snapshots of key wins or success stories, such as a blog post or comment that did particularly well, or a testimonial.
    • Identify key performance indicators (KPIs) that are important to your customers, measuring success against these metrics.
    • Check in with customers who are not meeting certain thresholds of activity (for example, if they haven’t logged in or made a repeat purchase in a month).

    Also, in an effort to continue to build trust and assurance with your clients, regularly ask for feedback. It can come in a monthly service survey or by way of just calling your customer at relevant intervals to ask him or her if there’s anything else you can do.

    Relevant read:

    Find your right SaaS customers

    You need to develop an ‘ideal customer profile’. It‘s a fictitious organization and you need to address the following to create the profile:

    • How are they valuable to your company? In addition to paying for your service, will they provide referrals and testimonials? Can they point you to new opportunities, or provide resources to grow your business?
    • How does your SaaS product help them? Does it improve their revenue, reduce their cost, or improve productivity?
    • You need to build the fictitious customers from real data. To get this real data, talk to your existing customers, and find out what value they actually get from your product.

    When you getting feedback from your existing customers, don’t just contact them once. Their input will be valuable before you sell, after you sell, and after they receive value from your product. Ask them to quantify the value so you can understand how it works and how it doesn’t.

    Optimize your email campaign

    Unless you have a killer email campaign, most of your prospects are going to forget you exist within hours of enrolling in your trial. To get the most out of your drip email campaign, follow these strategies. Use “human” email addresses. Don’t ever send an email from a department. Instead of “Sales@YourBusiness.com”, use “YourName@YourBusiness.com”.

    Optimize your email campaign
    Optimize your email campaign

    Send activity-based emails. Your drip campaign should automatically email your leads at different situations, including when they sign up, if they visit the account or cancellation page, and if their trial is about to end.

    Follow up

    You will rarely close a deal on the first call. Startup sale’s success is dependent on your ability to follow up repeatedly. You want to get either a clear yes or no. A maybe isn’t a no until it’s a no. So, make sure you or your team follow up until your prospect gives you an answer one way or another. If your prospect has ever expressed interest in your product, follow up forever. Don’t settle for silence or “maybe”; maybes kill your startup. Keep calling and emailing until you get a clear “yes” or “no”.

    If the lead is completely cold, follow this 14-day plan:

    • Day 1: Initial contact.
    • Day 3: First follow-up. Reach out at a different time of day with a condensed version of your initial message.
    • Day 7: Second follow-up. Reach out at a different time of day and restate your call to action.
    • Day 14: Third follow-up. If you haven’t received any response from your lead, send the break-up email. This is where response rates skyrocket.

    If you don’t receive a response to your break-up email, move on to more promising leads.

    Must read:

    Build Solid Long-Term Relationships with your Customers

    When your entire business lives online, sometimes it’s hard to build any kind of relationship with your customers. That’s why it’s imperative you and your team have great written and spoken communication skills. You or your sales team should be able to reassure prospects that your business will be around for the long term and is not a fly-by-night operation. When a customer decides to use your software, they should see it as a long-term investment in their own business. When you have a high level of rapport with your customer base, it makes it easier to increase your revenue through upsells or add-ons, or even bring in new business through referrals and testimonials.

    Be Proactive

    There is no “one solution” that is right for every company to use with its customers. Focus on identifying similar types of customer needs, and be proactive in creating solutions that can be standardized for similar types of customers. Patterns will start to emerge over time, and you will be able to create solution types that can be repeated and scaled. Using tracking software allows you to know what your customer is examining and for how long. This way, you can predict his or her objections upfront and notice trends among your customers.

    Conclusion

    SaaS sales is hard, but it isn’t impossible. If you incorporate these strategies into your sales cycle, you’ll drastically increase your chances of success. It’s important to remember when you are running your business not to get totally caught up with the operations and forget about working on your sales process. Automated sales are great, but sometimes you need to add that personal touch to really take your business to the next level. Do you have any other strategies to sell your product? Please let us know in the comments section below.

  • Chatbot – Perfect SaaS Business Tool

    Software as a Service (SaaS) is a high engagement affair with its users. Modern businesses face crucial challenges related to customer retention and business development. Due to a shift in focus from primarily sales-driven organizations to more service-driven systems, businesses are trying to improve revenues by engaging customers in better ways. With the rise in popularity of communication services such as Facebook Messenger, LiveChat, Whatsapp, and others, it has changed the way consumers interact, both in their personal and professional lives.

    Chatbot
    Chatbot

    Research shows that customers become angry when businesses do not satisfy or provide proper customer support. By improving customer support functions, businesses can build brand loyalty and boost revenue in a short time.

    Also read:

    What is a Chatbot?

    In short, a chatbot is a computer program which mimics conversation between users, usually powered by artificial intelligence. A user could ask the chatbot a question or provide it with an instruction and the chatbot will respond. Chatbots are the new-age tool for helping businesses improve customer satisfaction, thereby, improving sales.  They’re typically considered either an informational bot or a utility bot; a utility bot is generally one that takes instructions such as scheduling an appointment, and an informational bot is one which is pretty self-explanatory – it provides the user with information, usually about the website they’re on.

    How Chatbot Works?
    How Chatbot Works?

    Why use chatbots?

    Chatbots are becoming an effective tool for lead capturing and are being integrated into websites to help businesses get prospects in efficient and cost-effective ways. They are more than simply a traditional live chat. They have assisted the startup world with scaling operations, building customer bases and boosting revenues.
    Users tend to favour an interactive medium for making their online purchases, and ultimately users want their information as quickly as possible. Chatbots allow your user to get their answer straight away, and if the bot is integrated with an app such as Facebook Messenger, there’s no need for them to download an additional app or keep changing between screens.

    Use cases for chatbot
    Use cases for chatbot

    A chatbots’ ability to understand and respond to customers’ questions make them a popular and powerful application. Chatbots help companies by offering better customer engagement. In turn, this drives companies to grow stronger globally through their outreach. Benefits also include saving time and money as well as optimally use human resources.
    SaaS businesses would not exist without the invention of the internet. Over the last 30 years, though, the playing field has been levelled. It is time for SaaS platforms to find a new differentiator, not only against other businesses but also against other SaaS. Chatbots are the perfect tool to bring that differentiation.

    Relevant read:

    Here are six ways chatbots can positively impact your SaaS business.

    They’re fast

    One of the biggest things that chatbots bring to the table is their ability to take a huge burden off customer support. Unlike executives who cannot handle more than 3 or 4 customers at a time in real-time conversations, chatbots can tackle many customers at once.
    Conventional CRM forces customers to wait to have their grievances addressed. In addition to the problems they’re facing, the long wait adds to a customer’s anxiety. By dropping a (knowledgeable) chatbot on your website or within your platform, you instantly give your audience what they want: help, now.

    Lead Filtering and Identification

    If you run an ecommerce business or a sales website, you may be receiving significant traffic due to promotional expenditure, but does it convert into tangible sales? The answer is, highly unlikely. Even a sales funnel will only work if the user follows through with the content. However, when you position a Chatbot, it prompts the user when looking for something specific. You feed the Chatbot with keywords and once the user responds, the Chatbot connects them with an actual salesperson.
    You may be unsure about retaining a 24/7 sales representative because you don’t want to waste resources on casual ‘digital dwellers’ who have no intention to purchase. This is where the Chatbot can help you identify the lead at the right time, putting your sales team into action just when you need them.

    Benefits of Chatbot
    Benefits of Chatbot

    They’re Smart and Quick

    Customers prefer quick and immediate responses as opposed to slow and tedious email threads. The fact that customers can get quick responses gives credence to chatbots. Chatbots are a better alternative to both Interactive Voice Response mechanism and email resolution methods. Chatbots are trained to respond with relevant and precise answers in an instant.

    Information Gathering and Recording

    Data shows that people talk more freely when they know who they are interacting with, whether it be with Apple’s Siri, Microsoft’s Cortana, Google’s Home or Amazon’s Echo. This same principle applies to Chatbots. When posting casual comments, most users can provide vital information showing their importance to your business. The data voluntarily provided by consumers regarding recent purchases, hobbies, likenesses and residential areas can be leveraged by the sales team to reach out to specific buyers. While human sales personnel may miss these red flags, a pre-programmed Chatbot will not.

    Must read:

    Branding and first mover

    Finally, being a first mover. The first mover advantage, which gives the upper hand to the first company to adopt a new piece of technology, doesn’t last. Chatbots are super early. There aren’t that many SaaS companies leveraging them just yet. You can still be a first mover. You probably have a couple of years tops, though, so you might have to act fast.
    Being a first mover has several advantages beyond just ‘being first’ and grabbing all the money. Namely, being a first mover offers a branding advantage. Position your company as an innovator in your field and reap the beautiful branding rewards.

    A Happy Customer Stays

    Customers whose problems are solved are more likely to stay loyal to the company, instead of migrating to the competitor. In fact, customers will be receptive to receive information about new offers and products. Developers are training chatbots to interact with customers like a friend.
    This informality is likely to create a shift from conventional marketing techniques towards revolutionary methods. These are times where going ‘mobile and digital first’ is the order of the day. Companies use chatbots during aggressive marketing campaigns to out maneuver their competition.

    AI and chatbots

    Chatbots can do much more than just customer service, the list of use cases grows every day. Besides basic script-based customer support, chatbots using NLP and machine learning are being used across industries to enable support in different functions. For example –

    • Chatbots can provide virtual assistance – One can reserve events, doctor appointments, restaurant reservations, movie tickets and more. E-commerce chatbots help in ordering food and just about anything from websites. Chatbots can help manage a person’s health, grocery etc.
    • Chatbots can help in content delivery for news updates and sports content. Some chatbots exist to give basic diagnosis advice based on symptoms. The bot can then refer users to a live doctor for further consulting.
    • Additionally, Chatbots are used in real estate to identify and convert leads. The chatbot field is diverse and rapidly growing and has since surpassed the realm of customer service.

    Conclusion

    Organizations all over the globe are trying to come up with new initiatives to make their workplaces more productive. Chatbots can help here too. Automation can create a lot of free time to enhance efficiency or allow people to devote that time for creative work. Chatbots are here to stay and are growing in intelligence to support different functions in multiple industries. It is essential that organizations understand chatbots and their usage at the primary level. There is little doubt that the number of complex tasks that will be handled by chatbots will also grow exponentially in the future. What do you think about the use of Chatbot in SaaS industry? Please let us know in the comments section.

  • How to Remotely Manage your Workforce?

    The rise of remote work might be unavoidable, and you should want to take advantage. Allowing remote work can benefit not only your employees, but you as a manager and the organization as a whole. Not only do remote workers tend to enjoy what they do more and find remote work less stressful in general, but they’re more willing to put in extra hours as a result. However, that’s just one of the potential benefits of remote work for employees, managers, and companies alike. Remote work is about more than just the advancement of technology, it’s something that has the potential to help the way we work, manage, and lead.

    Remote work
    Remote work

    With 50% of the workforce working in some sort of telecommuting role and 80 to 90% of all employees saying they would like to work remotely at least part of the time, according to Global Workplace Analytics, offering remote opportunities is an attractive way to gain productive workers. That’s just the beginning, though. According to Owl Labs State of Remote Work 2019, 42% of remote workers have plans to work remotely more often over the next five years than they do now.

    Also read:

    The Challenges of Managing Remote Employees

    While there are great potential benefits of allowing remote work on your team, there’s a problem: most founders and managers still aren’t familiar with the challenges of managing remote employees. Remote work is different from the typical work structure in a few big ways. And while there are big benefits, there are also new and unique challenges with both hiring and managing remote employees that managers never see coming.

    According to Buffer’s State of Remote Work report, these are the major challenges with remote work in general: Without any prior experience working remote it can be hard anticipating the challenges your remote employees will face.

    Challenges of working remotely
    Challenges of working remotely
    • Loneliness and isolation – Regular human interaction can be easy to take for granted, until you don’t have an office full of people to be around every day. Do what you can to engage them socially with the rest of the team whenever possible.
    • Communication issues due to a lack of non-verbal cues – When you don’t have enough face-to-face communication, it can become difficult to sense intent in messages between you and your employee. It’s harder to understand a message when it’s only text, or you don’t know them as well as other, in-office employees.
    • Feeling left out – The feeling of being left out– of company celebrations, consideration for a promotion, and your opinion in general– is more common among remote employees than those on-site. When you work remotely, you miss out on so many opportunities to connect with your colleagues and managers.
    • Monitoring – You can’t physically monitor them.
    • Feedback system – Reviewing work and providing feedback is difficult.
    • If you have multiple remote employees, it’s hard to keep them moving in the same direction.

    Relevant read:

    Top 7 Tips for Managing Remote Employees

    Remote management can feel like a totally different challenge than managing people you work side by side with. Things that work in an office don’t always translate exactly to remote employees. Use these tips to be more conscious of the unique approaches you should take for managing remote employees.

    Hire the Right People

    Let’s face it- not everyone can be a remote worker. Everyone loves the flexibility of working remotely. But only some have the attitude and discipline to be productive as remote employees. When hiring a remote employee, look for people who can work independently.

    Good remote workers have a positive attitude and motivation to do their job well. You don’t want people who always need a push to complete the task. It will be a nightmare if you have to micro manage your remote employees. A good remote employee will not wait for you to ask for updates or assign tasks. Rather, he or she will proactively update you on the status and schedule.

    Hire the right people
    Hire the right people

    Always hire employees who communicate well as it’s the key to a successful remote team. The better your remote employees understand your instructions and communicate with you, the easier it will be to manage them.

    Set Clear Expectations

    Everyone has a different idea of what doing something “quickly” or “well” means. Whether showing examples of what you expect to be done, calendar sharing, etc., make sure you have clear expectations from those you work online. The more prepared they are, the better they can serve.

    Set clear expectations
    Set clear expectations

    Explain what you want from your remote employees and when you want it. There is no better way for managing remote employees than using well-defined and measurable goals.

    How to:

    Engage Regularly

    It’s hard to keep all employees on the same page if you have multiple remote employees. Engage with your remote workers on a daily basis through some kind of communication. Use multiple channels to communicate. Then, plan a regularly scheduled face-to-face meeting.

    Engage regularly
    Engage regularly

    This can be weekly, monthly, or annually, and could be combined with a training or coaching program. This constant interaction and engagement will help remote workers feel included in an important aspect of the organization. You can identify issues early and manage them better with frequent communication.

    Have Reliable Tools First

    If remote employees can’t download files, struggle hearing on a conference call, and consistently receive meeting invitations for times when they are still asleep, you have failed to address the basics. First, invest in reliable tools to make collaboration possible. Then develop clear processes to use such tools.
    These are some of the Tools to Help You Boost Team Collaboration.

    Track Progress of Your Remote Employees

    Be sure to track the progress of your remote employees daily. You stay on top of project status and eliminate nasty surprises later by reviewing work every day. Give your remote workers periodic feedback to ensure they are heading in the right direction.

    Here are some tools you can use to track time, project status, and tasks:

    1. HiveDesk is a time tracking software for managing remote employees. You can create automatic timesheets, capture screenshots, track project & tasks, and measure productivity with HiveDesk. Start your 14-day free trial.
    2. Hubstaff is a staff monitoring software which screenshots the activity levels.
    3. Asana is a project management software that allows you to organize to-do lists, projects & meeting information, conversations, and emails in an easy-to-read dashboard.
    4. Trello is a project management tool that allows you to manage tasks and projects.

    Must read:

    Stay Focused on Goals, Not Activity

    It is important to manage expectations and stay focused on goals when embracing a remote workforce. Don’t worry as much about what is being done. Instead, concentrate on what is being accomplished. If we are meeting our goals, then great. If not, we need to look into the situation further. It is all about accomplishment, not activity.

    Conclusion

    There’s a lot about managing remote teams that’s exactly the same as managing those on-location. However, it’s a mistake to assume that a remote employee is the same as one working in the same office as you. Remote employees are faced with unique challenges and you have to understand those challenges to effectively manage your entire team. What do you think of this list of tips to for managing remote employees? Please share it with your team and followers on social media.

  • Top Time Tracking Softwares for SaaS

    Time tracking software tracks the total time spent by employees on tasks and projects. This software captures employee time, hourly wages, and client billing rates and uses this information to automate invoicing and payroll management functions. This software is used by employees and employers in many industries and helps small- and mid-sized business owners stay organized and up-to-date in managing their employees’ time. Time tracking software increases productivity in employees because it allows for accountability, helps to discover which activities or events cause time wasting, and keeps all time data in one location.

    Benefits of Time-Tracking Software

    Here are some of the prominent benefits of time-tracking software:

    Effective Tracking for Freelancers and Remote Workers

    As businesses increasingly move toward mobile workforces, this trend poses multiple time-tracking challenges. It is frustrating to track attendance and time worked for each freelancer or remote employee separately. Time tracking software records attendance and time worked for employees and collects it on a dashboard for managers. Some time-tracking tool also offers automated screen capture, which enables users to monitor the total time spent on non-work activities by remote workers and freelancers.

    Efficient Payroll Management

    Payroll calculation is a time-consuming process. Payroll managers need to coordinate with employees and their managers to collect a series of information such as timesheets, hourly wages, leave records, and overtime pay to calculate employee compensation. Time tracking tool captures in and out-time for employees and provides users with reports on total hours worked and leave taken. The software also incorporates other payroll calculation factors such as differential wages and employee incentives.

    Mobile Access

    Due to an increasing trend of remote workforces, mobile access has become a necessity in today’s software market. A time-tracking mobile application allows remote workers to record their schedules, submit time-off requests, and view changes to their schedules on the go. Some products also offer GPS tracking, which enables managers to track the time spent by their field staff at a client location.

    Compliance Requirements

    Today’s businesses are subject to a number of payroll and wage-related compliances. They mandate strict standards regarding minimum wages and overtime pay and imposes severe penalties on business that do not comply. A time-tracking tool that tracks these compliances alerts managers when employee hours go beyond the recommended levels and ensures that overtime pay is incorporated into the employee payroll. Time tracking tool also provides standard reports related to these compliances.

    Also read:

    Typical Features of Time-Tracking Software

    1. Billable and non-billable hours: Track billable and non-billable hours related to a project.
    2. Online time tracking: Capture employee and task times using online applications that can be accessed and synced through a browser, mobile app, or desktop application.
    3. Automatic time capture: Record in and out-time of employees and calculate the number of hours worked. Users can also capture time using biometrics and other electronic time-capture methods.
    4. Employee database: Store staff contact information and project statuses.
    5. Overtime calculation: Record and manage overtime hours for employees.

    Top SaaS Products for Tracking Time and Activity

    Here is our list of top SaaS products that can effectively help you track the time and activities of your employees.

    Celoxis

    Celoxis
    Celoxis

    Celoxis’ project management software integrates seamlessly with over 400 popular business applications and it’s easy to use and powerful API makes it easy to integrate with any custom or in-house software that you use. With Celoxis, you can identify project requests that boost business value, build project plans that adapt to the real-world and visually monitor progress to fix problems before they start. You can also optimally allocate resources based on skills and availability and make pro-active hiring decisions based on future capacity and demand.

    Some of the features of Celoxis are:

    • Get automatic cost and revenue estimates from your project plans.
    • Monitor profits in real-time.
    • Stop billing leaks by invoicing your clients without delay.
    • Share files, apprise progress and exchange ideas with your team and your clients.
    • With fully customizable client portal, clients can do a whole lot more.
    • Customize prebuilt workflow apps to track issues, bugs, risks, change requests and approvals, or create your own unique app from scratch.
    • You will never go back to spreadsheets again. Slice, dice and visualize data your way.
    • Create and share dashboards that save time and accelerate decision making.
    • Schedule reports directly to your CEO’s inbox.
    Celoxis pricing
    Celoxis pricing

    Pricing: Celoxis has 2 pricing options – Cloud (US $25 per user/month) and On-premise (US $450 per user).

    Relevant read:

    Trackabi

    Trackabi is a perfect web-based tool for time tracking and leave management for freelancers, small and medium-sized companies.

    Trackabi
    Trackabi

    With trackabi, you can report time worked manually or use a timer and configure your timesheet with custom fields. You can also generate reports from timesheet, export them into PDF or Excel, print, or share with your clients via a link.

    Some of the features of trackabi are:

    • Prepare a vacation schedule. Approve or reject leave requests from employees.
    • Maintain a directory of current and former employees with their contact details.
    • Apply flexible access permissions via roles assigned to users.
    • Group employees into teams to assign to projects and manage access roles on the team level.
    • Invite your clients to join and gain access to time reports for their projects.
    • Get an extract of what is happening in your company every day, week, or month.
    • Import data from the most popular time trackers, project management, and source control systems.
    Trackabi pricing
    Trackabi pricing

    Pricing: Trackabi has 3 pricing options – Starter which costs $0 for 5 users, Business which costs $16/month for every 5 users, and Business Plus which costs $20/month for every 5 users. It also provides a 30 days free trial.

    TSheets

    TSheets is an employee time tracking and scheduling solution that saves business owners time and money. Get rid of that old punch clock or spreadsheet and simplify payroll, invoicing, and job costing. Whether they’re in the office or on the road, your employees can track time from any location—using a smartphone, tablet, desktop or laptop—in real time.

    TSheets
    TSheets

    Plus, TSheets is the only time tracking system embedded inside QuickBooks. You can review and approve employee time cards to run payroll, do job costing, or create invoices—without ever leaving QuickBooks!

    Some of the features of TSheets are:

    • Accurate time for client invoicing and painless payroll
    • Track billable time against customers, projects or jobs, classes, and service items.
    • GPS time tracking and timesheet compliance
    • Managers can assign workers to jobs or shifts to keep the workforce in sync
    • Time tracking and scheduling work in perfect harmony
    • Mobile time tracking with GPS and geofencing
    • Real-time project tracking
    • Customer support that lives up to the hype
    TSheets pricing
    TSheets pricing

    Pricing: There are two plans available – Premium ($8/user/month + $20 base fee/month) and Elite ($10/user/month + $40 base fee/month).

    Must read:

    ProofHub

    ProofHub
    ProofHub

    ProofHub helps you to plan and collaborate while having a seamless user experience that keeps everyone in the loop and focuses on the necessary with little to no learning curve. It can Integrate with the apps you already use. You can access Freshbooks, Google Calendar, iCal, Box, Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive and Outlook, bringing them all together within ProofHub.

    Some of the features of ProofHub are:

    • Create discussion topics and bring all your team and client discussions at one place eliminating long email threads.
    • Prioritize tasks with clear deadlines and set tasks to recur to never miss the ones that need to be done regularly.
    • Plan and visualize how pieces of your project fit together in a timeline view.
    • Define custom roles and stay in ultimate control of who gets access to what according to your organizational workflow.
    • You can get answers to where’s the team’s time going and what are the billable hours of projects
    • In ProofHub, you can choose who manages which project. A project manager will receive all the important notifications for the missed deadlines and overdue tasks and stay accountable.
    • Stay updated with all the activities happening in ProofHub through real-time in-app, desktop, email, and mobile notifications.
    Proofhub pricing
    Proofhub pricing

    Pricing: ProofHub provides you two different options – Ultimate control which is charged $89/month billed annually ($99/m billed monthly) and Essential which is charged $45/month billed annually ($50/m billed monthly). It also provides you with a 14-day free trial.

    Zoho People

    Zoho People
    Zoho People

    Zoho people is a 360-degree HR solution. It takes care of your HR processes while you take care of your employees. From onboarding and attendance management to time tracking and appraisals, it has all the features. One of the best things about Zoho People is its flexibility. It is not used just by HR department but also can be used by Delivery Leaders, Office Management, Training Department and Finance Departments

    Some features of Zoho People are:

    • Streamline both your data collection and secure storage with our employee database management system.
    • Set up your organization and maintain all your employee records in one central location.
    • Zoho People provides all the tools you need to help your HR staff and employees stay efficient, up-to-date, and productive, even on the go.
    • Set your organization’s hours, track your employee attendance, and make your payday stress-free.
    • Add clients, break down your projects into smaller tasks, and record hours in a timesheet.
    • Invoicing projects is a breeze because Zoho People is fully integrated with Zoho Books, Zoho Invoice, and Quickbooks.
    • Zoho People’s LMS is an intuitive platform to easily create and manage your organization’s training programs. Create courses, track employee progress, and help your team master new skills.
    Zoho People pricing
    Zoho People pricing

    Pricing: Zoho People gives you four different pricing options – Essential HR (₹42 /user/month billed annually), Professional (₹83 /user/month billed annually), Premium (₹125 /user/month billed annually), and Enterprise (₹167 /user/month billed annually). It also provides a feature of 15-day free trial.

    Conclusion

    Ideally, time-tracking software can tweak discrepancies in workflows to fix what is and isn’t working to increase profits and automate companies’ payroll and billing operations. Many time tracking software solutions work with other softwares like workforce management software, as well as payroll software and talent management suites. Time tracking software can be integrated either directly into time clock hardware or deployed in the cloud. Above is a list of tools that can be treated as a reference. You can choose a tool which suits your needs. How are you tracking the time of your employees? Please let us know in the comments section below.

  • Why Outsource Software Development?

    Building a SaaS product introduces a lot of challenges – especially acquiring the right talent for the project, meeting budget and time targets. Outsourcing brings many advantages to SaaS development. The offshore SaaS development process is now smoother than ever with implementation of better development methodology and qualified product developers.

    With adequate resources available, one can use simple development methodology to implement a communication and result oriented strategy. With a team-based approach to SaaS product development, you get access to additional benefits of flexibility and speed. The best place to find local developers to collaborate with is to attend local tech meet-ups and start asking around. Find like-minded people you’d trust to collaborate with to develop your idea.

    Why Outsource Software Development?

    At the most fundamental level, outsourcing can help solve three specific issues: providing access to talent, saving time and lowering costs. In addition, outsourcing can also provide scale and reduce time to market. Many large companies have already turned to outsourcing. Startups and mid-sized technology companies are getting there, but they seem to have a harder time making the decision to try it.
    Working with an outsourced development team provides a number of benefits to SaaS companies. Both during the MVP stage and growth stage. Besides, outsourcing the development of your SaaS products give you multiple benefits.

    Why Outsourcing?
    Why Outsourcing?

    Most software companies build early versions of their software in-house and iterate until they find a product-market fit. Then, they rapidly grow their user bases. But as growth accelerates, so does the pressure to meet aggressive product roadmaps, add new features and fix bugs and usability issues. The weight of this work strains the internal software development team, and they need to expand.
    At this stage, companies immediately run into the realities of finding and hiring IT talent — the 50-plus days it takes to find, interview and hire (which doesn’t include on-boarding) and the high incremental costs of adding new employees. All while managing sales, marketing and growth processes. If you’re facing similar challenges, outsourcing might be the best answer.

    Also read:

    Benefits of SaaS Software Outsourcing

    In addition to providing access to talent, outsourcing development affords companies many other benefits, from time and cost savings to process improvements.

    Start Software Development Projects Right Away.

    Outsourcing can help you manage growth without getting overwhelmed. It can speed up software development by providing quick access to developers and testers. Instead of spending 50 days to hire each developer, you can hire a whole team in one week and get started. And you don’t need to spend 80 hours screening every hire; it’s done by your outsourcing partner.

    Lower Costs

    Like most other tech companies, SaaS ventures typically operate on a shoestring budget focused on reducing initial development costs and maximizing the return from their finalized software. Because of these limitations and the intensely competitive nature of the SaaS industry, it is incredibly difficult for companies in this arena to have the budget to hire the sort of large, highly skilled internal development teams necessary to produce a minimum viable product (MVP) that can connect with consumers.

    Outsourcing lower costs
    Outsourcing lowers cost

    That’s why many companies, large and small alike, turn to outsourcing when undertaking a new SaaS development project. Some companies opt to outsource their entire development process to an experienced end-to-end delivery team, capable of translating a rough idea into a polished final product. Whatever your needs, your outsourcing partner should help you create a cost-effective plan of action that allows you to add hyper-specialized developers to your company as soon as you are ready.

    Implement Efficient Processes.

    Software development requires both skilled developers as well as strong processes. A good outsourcing partner can improve development by leveraging its experience in executing similar projects. It can, for example, apply its framework and practices for managing code quality and protecting intellectual property.

    Outsourcing Implement Efficient Processes
    Outsourcing Implement Efficient Processes

    With an outsourcing partner, you can meet demand at a reduced cost, allowing you to invest more in key growth drivers, such as marketing, sales and product development. You actually can have your cake and eat it too!

    Relevant read:

    Find the Right Talent

    Find the right talent
    Find the right talent

    For the modern companies, one of the most harrowing challenges that they face is finding the right talent in a competitive job market. The Annual CIO Survey found that 65% of technology leaders said that the search for tech talent is one of their industry’s biggest challenges. However, thoughtful tech leaders can sidestep this problem through software outsourcing–and by working with outsourcing partners who have a wide network of experienced software engineers ready to begin their next project today. Just as importantly, their recruiting staff can identify which software engineers are best suited for your organization given your internal capabilities, budget, and project goals.

    Flexibility After Development

    In the midst of a major software development project, most employees don’t have time to think ahead to next month, much less next year. But, one of management’s primary responsibilities during this time period is to make sure that their team is prepared for the next steps once the software is brought to market.

    If you outsource SaaS development from the very beginning of your project, you can simply thank your temporary team members for their hard work and contributions and wish them well on their next project. This is an enviable position to be in: managers who followed the old system of hiring a full-time staff are trying to figure out how to reduce their budget and put these employees to work, while those who outsourced development are looking towards the future and reorganizing their augmented staff for the next big project.

    Learn from Others

    Outsourcing software development allows you to bring in the most sought-after experts in the SaaS development field without the need for a drawn-out hiring process and, even more impressively, allows you to add them to your team almost immediately since your outsourcing partner will have these engineers on-call.

    An incredibly difficult aspect of the SaaS process is that management should fully understand the SaaS development cycle, their customer needs, and the challenges that the project will likely bring. However, no matter how experienced your management team is, they can undoubtedly benefit from working with outside advisors who have overcome those very same challenges repeatedly throughout their careers.

    Must read:

    Some top SaaS companies that outsourced development and became successful.

    Slack

    Slack
    Slack

    One of the most popular communication tool used by many businesses. Not everybody is aware that the development of this collaboration application launched in 2013 was in fact outsourced. The four founders of the startup contacted a design company to handle the design of the website, application and Slack’s logo. The MVP was later distributed to beta testers and gained 8k users on the final launch day. As for today, Slack is used by nearly 8 million users per day and is steadily gaining momentum and recognition.

    Microsoft

    Microsoft
    Microsoft

    Yes, Microsoft, a giant that does not have to be introduced. Employing more than 131k people, Microsoft is said to have as many remote contractors as its direct employees. In 2010 Microsoft signed an outsourcing deal with a provider in India to manage its internal IT operations. The partner was responsible for managing IT help desk and servicing applications, devices and databases in 450 locations in more than 100 countries. This allowed Microsoft to reduce IT support costs.

    Groove

    Groove
    Groove

    Groove – an online customer support platform – is yet another amazing example of what outsourcing can give you. Its founder – Alex Turnbull – after selling his previous company, wanted to get back into the game as quickly as possible. Lacking technical knowledge and staff, he decided to outsource the entire development of the product. This allowed him to save money that would have been spent on hiring employees, offices etc. In 2016, Groove gained a total revenue of $5.2 million and is now employing people all around the world.

    Conclusion

    In the development of any software product or service, the most crucial resources are time, money and energy. SaaS software or products are the applications that will only witness a rise in the coming years. There are various tools and applications available in the market today for efficient project management overseas. With Skype, Google Hangouts, Jira and various others, you can easily manage the offshore development of your SaaS product.
    Those few stories from SaaS startups that recognized the value of outsourcing their development are truly inspiring. They are proof that outsourcing saves money and allows to quickly create prototypes and shorten time-to-market. So, what do you think about outsourcing software development? Please let us know in the comments section below.

  • All About Accounting Software for SaaS

    How many of us really like dealing with the nitty-gritty of running the accounting and bookkeeping operations of our companies? Unless you’ve got a passion for numbers (or you’re the founder of an accounting startup), you probably look at accounting as the least engaging, most time-consuming part of your day-to-day as an entrepreneur.

    Accounting Software for SaaS
    Accounting Software for SaaS

    So how do you keep track of your daily business accounting while also gearing up your business for future growth? You pick the best accounting software for SaaS companies. Implementation of the proper systems, processes and technology stack as early as possible is the solution. With the right accounting software for SaaS businesses, you can achieve a seamless flow of data between all financial processes in your business which would ultimately enter your cloud accounting system, ideally automatically.

    Also read:

    Spreadsheets vs. SaaS accounting software

    When you start making your first purchases for your startup, it’s easy to record them in an Excel or a Google Docs spreadsheet. Excel spreadsheets may seem perfect for the first weeks, or even months, as you’re getting your business off the ground, but continuing to manage your books that way — and not using real SaaS accounting software for your startup — is simply the wrong thing to do. This is true especially when you seek investments or venture capital to grow your business; when you show potential backers your financials in a handful of spreadsheets, chances of errors are higher and it looks unprofessional.

    Spreadsheets vs. SaaS accounting software
    Spreadsheets vs. SaaS accounting software

    There are certainly people who could maintain their financials for their SaaS startup in this manner. In these cases, they’d have to create very detailed spreadsheets with all the accounts and reporting elements of standard accounting. Spreadsheets like this would look a lot like accounting software, and the amount of time they’d take to set up and verify would be better spent on growing their business. The disadvantages of using Excel for accounting for your SaaS startup is about a lot more than just the way figures look in a spreadsheet. There is so much that can be wrong in a spreadsheet that investors can’t take that sort of financial data seriously.

    What SaaS accounting software offers?

    SaaS accounting software offers so much more than Excel that it’s really a no-brainer. Here are some of the best features that most accounting software provides:

    • Contact and project management: Set up your contacts, create projects, and manage your clients, all without having to copy and paste rows and columns.
    • Time tracking: If you bill your clients by the hour, most accounting software includes the capability to do this automatically. Create time sheets, then add them up when it’s time to issue invoices.
    • Invoicing: This is one of the most practical features of accounting software. You can easily invoice your clients, according to what you’ve sold them, how much time you’ve spent on their projects, and more. You can also create estimates, which you can then convert to invoices with a few clicks.
    • Price database: Depending on what your business sells — services, hardware, etc. — you can have a price database and update it as needed. You’ll always be charging your clients the correct prices. And you won’t need multiple calculations for sales tax; the software will handle that too.
    • Expenses: Accounting software handles expenses very well. Each team member has a role in the accounting software, and you can see, at any time, how much has been spent, and reimburse people accordingly.
    • Apply purchases and expenses to the appropriate accounts: Some of your expenses are for payroll, others for office equipment, and others for capital assets. Try separating those correctly in an Excel spreadsheet, especially when you need to calculate depreciation. Accounting software does this for you, and helps ensure best practices are followed in recording expenses.
    • Payroll and benefits: Handle payroll, payroll takes, reporting, and all the related expenses without breaking a sweat.
    • Bank feeds and reconciliation: With accounting software, you can have your bank transactions update automatically, and apply their expenditures to the correct accounts with a few clicks. Accounting software handles multiple bank accounts easily, and some software handles multiple currencies, so you don’t even have to look up exchange rates.
    • Cash flow projections: You can do this with Excel, with complicated formulae, but accounting software lets you see the big picture at any time.
    • Sharing: You may have a number of principals in your startup who need access to your accounts. With an Excel spreadsheet, you won’t all have access at the same time. Plus, you’ll never know if anyone has made a mistake. With accounting software, your accountant or CFO can check your books easily, and you can even give potential investors limited access to view your accounts.
    • Pretty printouts: Whenever you are seeking investments, you’ll need to show how healthy your business is. Accounting software prints out easy to read, standardized reports: your trial balance, profit & loss account, balance sheet, and more. You’ll look a lot more serious with accounts that investors can understand at a glance.
    • Audit trail: No one wants to get audited, but if you ever do face the scrutiny of the IRS, accounting software makes the process a lot simpler.
    • Support: When that person who set up the Excel spreadsheet leaves your startup for a different gig, who will be able to help out when something goes wrong? Accounting software includes support so when you don’t understand something, an answer is just a phone call away.

    Relevant read:

    Why are good accounting systems important for SaaS?

    The difficulty with SaaS businesses is that they are typically high transaction volume businesses, especially on the revenue side of things. It’s not uncommon to have thousands of transactions per month happening due to the recurring revenue model. When you have old, archaic accounting software (or even worse, spreadsheets), managing this high transaction load, it means that it’s very manual to reconcile and categorize your financial data on an on-going basis. You would need to enter every single one of these transactions 1 by 1 into your accounting system or spreadsheet in order to handle the accounting properly.

    Some SaaS businesses that we encounter even have 1 full time employee at the company just to handle data entry. Using this approach usually ends up with the company wasting time, wasting resources and not getting the data they need when they need it. With the right accounting software for SaaS businesses, much of this manual data entry and categorization process can be greatly alleviated.

    Focus on These Features

    Ok, you have decided that it is time to find a new accounting solution. Here are a few accounting-specific modules that you should ask about when assessing new software.

    Features
    Features

    Revenue Recognition

    Recurring revenue is the heart of your business. The revenue recognition process must be bullet-proof. Ask the vendor if they have specifically addressed ASC 606 or IFRS 15. Reporting is also key. Can you produce a report that shows recognized revenue by month by customer by product? Reports are also needed to prove out your deferred balances by customer. Your auditor will ask for this!

    Payment Integration

    If you invoice customers and receive a check or ACH in return, payment integration may not be relevant to you. But if your customers pay only by credit card, you’ll want a solid integration to Stripe or PayPal, for example, into your software. It must be able to track the meta data related to these transactions so that revenue recognition can be performed.

    Must read:

    Sales Tax

    This seems to be changing every year, and sales tax treatment on SaaS varies wildly from state to state. An out-of-the box integration that connects your accounting software to sales tax compliance software is necessary.

    Fixed Assets

    Software companies are typically not capital intensive in fixed assets (servers, expensive laptops, phone systems, etc.), but you do need a module for this. And it is a bonus if it also tracks the multiple “tax books” for GAAP, federal, and state purposes.

    Travel and Expense

    Does the software offer its own module to track and submit employee expense reports? And a mobile app? If it’s clunky, you may want to consider an outside T&E software vendor that integrates into your accounting system.

    CRM Integration

    Where does your quote and order begin? Integrating that information into your accounting system removes manual work, reduces errors, and most importantly, allows you to invoice faster so that can you accelerate cash flow. And cash is paramount in running any business.

    Conclusion

    If you’re going to eliminate the administrative nightmare of your accounting and start getting timely, accurate data, it all revolves in having the right accounting software for SaaS businesses in place, though choosing the right apps is just 50% of the equation to achieving stress-free accounting. The proper system architecture needs to be assembled, processes need to be defined so that everyone knows how data will flow between all apps and the right team has to be in place to maintain the integrity of the data on an on-going basis.

  • What is Customer Engagement?

    Customer engagement is the key to sustaining growth for SaaS companies. SaaS businesses must aim to educate and entertain their users to boost satisfaction and retention. You want customers to feel compelled to login to your platform in the morning, during lunchtime, and even before bedtime. You want the stickiness factor. Not only does this help boost user satisfaction, but it can also help your company improve customer retention.

    More and more SaaS companies are recognizing the amazing value that product-led growth provides. As a result, user engagement tools have become increasingly important. The goal of a SaaS CEO should be to increase the profit they make from each customer (LTV), and lower the costs in sales and marketing that it takes to acquire each customer (CAC). Measuring Customer Engagement is a key tool that will help you achieve that goal, as it will allow you to increase your trial conversion rates, which directly reduces CAC. And it will help you lower your churn rates, which directly increases LTV.

    What is Customer Engagement?

    Customer engagement is all about interactions between your customer and your brand. As a result, the interactions that you qualify as an engagement will be just as unique as your business. When you let your customers choose how they’d like to engage with you, you’ll be more likely to uncover the type of interactions that they find valuable. By making it easier for customers to engage in ways they find valuable, you’ll strengthen their emotional investment in your brand.

    What is customer engagement?
    What is customer engagement?

    Some customers will have a deeper level of engagement than others. For example, a new shopper might engage by following your brand on social media and placing an order, but this level of engagement is very different than someone who’s placed 10 orders in the last year and also referred their friends. Finding ways to add value to your customer experience can help you drive more valuable engagements more often. When customers feel like they have just as much to gain from engaging with your brand as you do, you’ll foster a sense of reciprocity that keeps them emotionally connected to your brand.

    Also read:

    Why is Customer Engagement Important?

    The digital marketplace offers customers a greater range of options than they’ve previously experienced. Now, the majority of value is gathered over time through a continuing cycle of commitment and re-commitment. To maintain a customer’s interest, enterprises need to be responsive to change, alert to a customer’s day-to-day needs, and in frequent contact. Customer engagement helps to continually demonstrate your commitment to the customer and allows you to deliver value in every phase of the customer journey.
    The importance of great customer engagement can’t be emphasized enough, as it builds and fosters:

    • Trust
    • Commitment to excellent service
    • Better communication
    • Healthy customer relationships
    • Valuable customer knowledge
    • Customer loyalty

    Customer engagement is the proof you provide to your customers that you value their success and are always working to deliver more. Remember, friendships endure while acquaintances come and go. With the right engagement strategy, you can foster long-term, mutually beneficial relationships with all your customers.

    How to measure Customer Engagement?

    You can’t improve customer engagement if you don’t know how to measure it. There are a number of different ways you can calculate engagement, which is why we’re giving you a head start by highlighting the most important metrics to start with. Measuring customer engagement requires that you do the following:

    • Identify the key events that you would like to track.
    • Track the number of customers who complete a purchase without making an account
    • Assign engagement scores to each action in a way that can be changed as your company evolves
    • Keep an eye on how often your customers make a purchase
    • Find the average amount a customer spends when they make a purchase
    • Create a database to store this information, ideally in a form that allows for fast querying, and easy cube-style, cross tabulated analyses.
    • Connect this database with other data sources that contain additional customer attributes that are relevant for understanding segmentation
    • Compute an engagement score for each user that can be used by sales and support.
    • Customer Engagement Score = (w1*n1) + (w2 * n2) + … + (w# + n#) where w is the weight given to a random event and n is the number of times the event occurred.

    Relevant read:

    Some Promising Customer Engagement Strategies

    Send Triggered Messaging

    Communication plays an integral role in customer relationships. You’re already emailing customers welcome messages, product updates, and the occasional thank you note. Real-time triggered emails get good results because they respond to subscriber actions and are relevant to them, so they benefit from current high engagement. Whereas routine marketing emails can be more like interruptions and are sometimes rejected as irrelevant.

    Let’s imagine that new users who don’t take a significant action on your platform within 2 days of signing up are more likely to churn. You can set up a triggered message to nudge these users to login to their accounts. Below is a triggered message from Buffer. Their system automatically emailed when social media post surpassed a specific audience reach.

    Triggered messaging
    Triggered messaging

    While routine marketing emails may seem interruptive because they may be irrelevant, triggered email messages tend to have a more positive impact on customers. Since the messages are triggered by specific actions that the customer did or did not take, these messages are more relevant and thus, more beneficial to the customer and more likely to promote engagement.

    Award points when a customer makes a purchase

    Showing your customers that you appreciate their investment in your brand can be as simple as awarding them points each time they place an order. Polaroid Originals adds value to every order their customers place, making each of them more likely to return to make another order in the future.

    Award points for a purchase
    Award points for a purchase

    By showing their customers they have just as much to gain from each purchase as they do, they’ve fostered feelings of reciprocity that will give them every reason to order from you again.

    Must read:

    Engage customers through the in-app chat feature.

    After working in SaaS marketing for years, it can be easy to forget how challenging it can be for a new user to navigate your company’s platform. Many customers may not be familiar with SaaS technology and may have a hard time successfully using the platform or getting the most out of its features. This frustration can often cause users to give up or move on to another SaaS product they may believe is easier to use. In addition to sending triggered messages with helpful tips, tutorials, and advice, you can also engage these users through in-app messaging to help provide ongoing assistance.

    In-app chat feature
    In-app chat feature

    Simply establishing the fact that you are available makes your customers feel better. It makes them not just view the product as some pixels on the screen, but as an extension of the people behind its creation: you. In-app messaging is effective because it allows you to speak with your customers one-on-one, helping them solve their greatest challenges. In addition to providing direct assistance to customers, you can also use the chat feature to find out which features new users are finding most difficult or asking specific questions about their experience. You can then use the information that you gather through these conversations to create interesting and relevant content that is helpful for users who are having similar issues.

    Encourage your best customers to share your brand with referrals

    RUNGUM Give 5 Get 5 Explainer Page
    RUNGUM Give 5 Get 5 Explainer Page

    Driving engagement also doesn’t have to be solely between your customers and your brand, it can also be between customers. Empowering your best customers to easily share your brand with their friends and family can not only help you acquire a new one, but also engage the customers you have. RunGum’s Give $5 get $5 simultaneously adds value to the friend that’s been referred to their brand and the customer that referred their friend. It’s this value that will make both customers more likely to re-engage again in the future.

    Also read:

    Develop educational tutorial videos.

    Continuing education is a vital part of SaaS customer engagement. In addition to free trainings and webinars, you can also create video tutorials as part of your SaaS marketing strategy. While you will still want to provide the typical educational assets such as blogs, e-books, and guides, you can also use video tutorials to engage your audience. Videos are stimulating and allow you to clearly and simply communicate your message to users faster than you can in text. Videos are also easier to consume on mobile devices, allowing users to quickly and conveniently access your training videos on demand.
    Basecamp, a project management company came up with a series of tutorial videos to educate prospects.

    Educational tutorial and videos
    Educational tutorial and videos

    If you want to produce video tutorials that are engaging, you need to think about what your customers most want to learn about your software. Consider what your customers greatest challenges typically are when they start to use the platform. Also, think about which features your customers will find most useful and create content around these topics. In addition to the topics that you choose for your video tutorials, it’s also important to consider how you plan to structure the content. To keep users interested, use storytelling methods that will help draw them in and make your content interesting and helpful.

    Conclusion

    Customers are the lifeblood of your business. To retain your users, experiment with different engagement strategies to improve retention. In the end, it’s important to remember that engagement = retention. If people aren’t using your platform, it could be because they are not engaged.

    It’s essential that SaaS marketers try out different user engagement strategies to find the most effective tactics for improving customer retention. You can use the SaaS marketing strategies above as a starting point for experimentation. Choose one or two of the strategies above and watch as your engagement rates steadily improve over time. Also, please let us know if this article helps you in any way.

  • Disadvantages of SaaS Discounting

    Discounts are one of the most powerful tools in a sales team’s arsenal. But way too many companies are using them wrong. To get people into their product, many SaaS companies turn to discounts to increase acquisition. They think that they can raise prices later, once these customers see the value in the product. But by discounting, you have already hurt that value.

    SaaS Discounting
    SaaS Discounting

    Pricing is a dedicated and patient process. After spending so much time perfecting your pricing, you shouldn’t use discounting as a “quick fix” to bring in more customers by underselling the value of your product. Excessive discounting causes a ton of damage to growing SaaS businesses. The most obvious impact is losing potential revenue. While that does hurt, there are much more destructive consequences that come later. So, let’s jump right in.

    Discounts Increase Your Churn

    Discounts increase your churn
    Discounts increase your churn

    One simple rule is key to sales: customers buy when the perceived value exceeds the price. The gap between price and value is the benefit a buyer receives. This is what makes discounting so effective at winning deals. You can get away with low value by offering an even lower price. That allows you to preserve this value gap. In this way, discounting hurts your business and increases customer churn.

    Discounted Customers Are Less Willing to Pay

    In SaaS, customers are constantly presented with so many promotions and discounts that if you offer a discount “for two days only,” they know there will be more coming down the pipeline. When just looking at the goal, it seems that the aggressive strategy may be the better choice. However, limiting our view to only this small window of time means we miss the significant repercussions of such an aggressive discount strategy further down the line.  

    Discounted customers are less willing to pay
    Discounted customers are less willing to pay

    We see that by using aggressive discounts, customers had:

    • Lower willingness to pay. Their price threshold is already set so low so when the price is brought back up, they have a higher price sensitivity and are less likely to renew.
    • High churn rate. Following the rise in price, rather than renewing, customers are more likely to churn out and look for a cheaper alternative.
    • Lower lifetime value (LTV). With so many customers that don’t renew, you’re losing out on that investment you’ve made to acquire them without even experiencing any revenue.

    Also read:

    Discounted Customers Don’t Appreciate Your Value

    That simple price and value model doesn’t reflect how people actually behave. That’s because there is a difference between actual value and perceived value. While actual value provided doesn’t change when you lower price, the perceived value does.
    Why is that? Through experience, people have learned to associate high prices with high quality. A nice dinner is more expensive than a burger from a fast food restaurant. A Ferrari is much more expensive than a Ford. Price is a proxy for quality.

    And this is why the perceived value is so important. When you lower the price of your software, perceived value will also decrease. A low price may help you land the deal today. But a low perceived value reduces the likelihood a customer be successful. At low price points, customers may not invest time & resources in your solution. It is easy to forget about a solution you paid little for. Without customer investment of time and resources, they won’t see results. And if they don’t see results, they will leave at the soonest available opportunity.

    Discounting Undervalue Your Product

    Companies often offer discounts thinking that it will help with cash flow by increasing acquisition of customers. However, in the long term, it ends up hurting you instead as you have to spend longer recovering CAC which is even higher with the increase in customers. Even if the discount brings in more business initially, you may never end up recovering CAC for these discount customers and ending up losing even more money in the end.

    Discounting undervalue your product
    Discounting undervalue your product

    While discounting directly affects your actual revenue, it also kills your momentum as a company by training both your customers and your team to devalue your product. By offering the same product at a discount, your potential customers may not think your product is worth your original price. Your sales teams just want to close. They may be using discounts as the path of least resistance to close a sale, diminishing the culture of profit you want to centre your company on.

    Relevant read:

    Customer Discounts Confuse Your Business Strategy

    Another dangerous consequence of discounted customers with high churn is confusing your company strategy. Companies optimize growth by identifying an ideal customer profile. Once understood, they then focus marketing & sales on these target customers. But if your churn is too high, you don’t know who your best customers are. In SaaS, a good customer isn’t one who is easy to sell. It is a customer who sticks around for a long time. Retention is much more important than the first sales conversion.

    So, excessive discounts used to land deals hide the most important insight: who will stick around. And if you don’t know whom to target, you will waste money on sales and marketing. This lack of focus also hurts your product team. They need to design features to make current customers stickier and attract new ones too. But if product managers don’t understand your users, they can’t improve the product to better meet user needs. So, the product gets bloated with unnecessary features that don’t tie to a clear use case. And guess what? Bloated products confuse and frustrate customers trying to use them. That reduces adoption and increases the likelihood of churn.

    Conclusion

    Businesses are evolving every day, and so are the tricks that can help you acquire customers. Discounts are one of the oldest, most effective selling tools; that being said, a discount isn’t just an easy-win tactic, but something you need to employ strategically based on the needs of today’s decision-makers. Bad discounting can do serious damage to your customer retention efforts.

    It attracts low-value customers who don’t appreciate your service and are likely to churn. It creates a ton of work for your Customer Success team trying to rescue accounts that won’t stay. And it confuses the ideal customer profile your teams need for focus. If you know about any other disadvantages/advantages of discounting, please let us know in the comments section.

    Also read: SaaS Discounting Strategy that Works