Being a model of efficiency can be your biggest advantage in swaying undecided clients.
As recent as five years ago, the approach to offering business software was reliant on end users dictating what they need and how they will get it. This approach, while seemingly effective, would often handcuff vendors and limit their ability to provide optimal service. Everything from creating media disks and designing packaging to shipping and delivery added extra costs into the process that would eventually need to be passed on to the customer.
One solution designed to help reduce costs to customers and sway them to particular products was to supply the software options digitally, via download. While this approach solved many problems it also incurred some new ones. The download server or mirrored server always seems too slow and customers don’t seem as comfortable buying software that they don’t have a physical disk to reinstall if there is a system crash.
This is where SaaS has gained a strong foothold in the market and is steadily gaining ground. Now you can offer Platform Software and System Software on a Cloud Infrastructure where anyone who is licensed to access it can log on and run the software through a secure internet connection. Now software can be run in a virtual environment and doesn’t need to be installed on each machine before use and, in most cases, because the software is internet based, it can run on virtually any operating system.
Selling and servicing this virtual environment can be a challenge. You will still need to convince consumers that running business software online is safe and secure. You will also need to establish organizational efficiencies to track user subscriptions. Now instead of offering a license and validating a seat, it is critical to efficiently create user accounts, secure personal information, track permissions and billing status, query member information, manage and even generate encrypted URLs and even track user statistics.
It is important to note that in a virtual software marketplace customers will be won or lost on the ability to efficiently and securely service each account. How can you convince anyone that you can offer efficiency if you fail to be efficient in your own business? Marketing your business as efficiency experts will gain extra leverage in your pursuit for market share. Your success or failure in this could ultimately be the difference between customers transitioning to SaaS or continuing to purchase software in conventional ways.
Fortunately there is an excellent solution available that was specifically designed with the SaaS market in mind. Subscription DNA® is a world-class Subscription Billing platform that does so much more than just manage Subscription renewals. Subscription DNA® has a robust member management platform that will support customers throughout their entire business lifecycle. Subscription DNA® offers CRM notes and reminders, branded secure subscriber portals, flexible web services, automated billing cycles, customizable data export, an extensive and comprehensive logging system and much, much more.
With Subscription DNA® it can be easy to stay efficient and relevant in an ever-evolving world of business software solutions. Contact Subscription DNA® and find out how they can help improve your business efficiency.