SaaS Support Best Practices: The Transparent Model

Grazed from CMSWire. Author: Kimberly Gress.

As technology vendors respond to a changing marketplace by creating Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) offerings, their relationship to their customers must change. Satisfying customers by creating a great product that garners positive reviews, and soliciting customer feedback for future upgrades simply isn’t enough.

When a company hands over control of its mission-critical software environment to a SaaS provider, the SaaS customer support organization essentially functions as an extension of the customer’s IT department. To take this step, a customer must trust that they will receive the constant, professional and hands-on support they need. Generating this trust requires that the Customer Support team be transparent and always available. The following best practices will ensure that the support organization does both:…

Publish a Service Availability Policy

Put your commitment to SaaS uptime and availability in writing. The service availability policy should be accessible online and include terms related to the guaranteed service uptime, service downtime expectations (such as scheduled maintenance and the possibility of unscheduled and emergency issues), any exceptions to the policy, and any financial compensation due to the customer should the policy terms not be met…

Read more from the source @ http://www.cmswire.com/cms/customer-experience/saas-support-best-practices-the-transparent-model-026962.php