There are many types of SaaS products out there, from CRMs to email marketing software to customer support software – but they all have a few things in common.
A SaaS product is a piece of software, but it’s so much more than that. SaaS tools offer various components that work together to provide value to the end user, with certain key trends and similarities. When these elements combine, you know it’s SaaS.
We’re going to explore the “faces” or key features of a SaaS product that contribute to its success. These “faces” combine to create working software that delights customers and has them renewing their subscription.
Each “face” is the shop front that users see when interacting with your SaaS. They’re critical for creating a seamless user experience and ensuring customer satisfaction.
1. The User Interface (UI): first impressions
A SaaS user logs into your product, and what’s the first thing they see?
The User Interface, or UI, is the visual and interactive front-end of the product. It utilizes shapes, colours and fonts to create an attractive design. It’s how users interact with your SaaS and access its various features to reach their goals.
The UI engages users with your product and allows them to perform tasks with your software. Without an attractive user interface that works as expected, your business will struggle with product adoption.
That doesn’t mean your UI has to be super fancy to impress your users. A familiar, clean, understandable design will contribute positively to the User Experience.
Key Elements:
- Simple, intuitive design that users can easily navigate. It should be easy for users to find what they need.
- Consistent color schemes, typography, and branding contributes to the experience of your software.
- Responsive design across devices enables users to access your SaaS on any device.
Importance: The UI is the first “face” of your software. It’s what your users see when they interact with the product. A working software tool with a great UI is better than a highly complex product that no one understands. If users can navigate the UI, this will positively impact UX and retention.
Example:
Dropbox is file-sharing and document-sharing software with exceptional UI design. Important features are surfaced in the homepage and user files are shared in a handy list. Left-hand navigation takes users to important folders. Dropbox’s UI design ensures users don’t get lost as they navigate the software.
2. The User Experience (UX): behind-the-scenes flow
Related to UI, UX as the overall experience users have while interacting with the product. While UI design is focused on how the interface looks, UX is concerned with how interactions feel.
The UX design process is a long one, but results in better customer engagement with the product. UX decides where everything in the product goes with the end result of helping users reach their goals. It can be as simple as a button being where users expect it to be, to what happens when users encounter an error.
A great UX is how your SaaS product communicates with users and delivers its value. It helps users find features and accomplish the desired tasks with your software. UX is always operating in a SaaS product, contributing to a great product experience. Optimizing for usability and ease of adoption are key elements of UX.
Key Elements:
- Streamlined navigation and workflows help users find what they need.
- Easy task completion with minimal friction contributes to smoother adoption of your SaaS.
- Personalization and user-centric design that adapts to individual needs engages users.
Importance: Great UX enhances usability and encourages long-term engagement. It makes your product easier and more enjoyable to use. They can use your SaaS product to solve more problems and attain value. UX is the way that users interact with your product to achieve their desired goals and cannot be separated from the product itself.
Example:
The seamless UX of Slack encourages users to collaborate with their teams. The UX invites users to participate and clearly shows engagement activities alongside particular ways of communicating with their team.
3. The core functionality: what the product actually does
Why did customers buy your product in the first place? To solve a problem.
The core features that define the SaaS product’s primary function set your solution apart from competitors. The core functionality is how your customers use your product to solve a particular problem, whether that’s keeping track of sales leads or accessing business intelligence.
The core functionality means your SaaS product does what you said it was going to do in the marketing phase. It means your SaaS product is actually working as expected, enabling users to accomplish tasks and solve problems.
It’s the key offering of your SaaS, and the combination of features working together to offer a specific deliverable. The question is, what does your SaaS actually do? The answer to this question is your core functionality.
Key Elements:
- The main toolset or service the SaaS product provides such as project management, accounting, or CRM
- Scalability to accommodate various user needs means your SaaS can provide functionality for different tiers
- Reliability and performance aspects such as speed, uptime, etc provides a consistent experience for users
Importance: A product’s ability to deliver its promised value drives adoption and retention. The core functionality When your software actually solves customer problems, your customers keep on using it.
Example:
Spotify delivers core functionality by allowing users to design ecommerce websites that convert. The website builder is intuitive and user-friendly, encouraging users to build their shops to sell products with Spotify.
4. Integrations: coming together
SaaS products don’t operate alone. You can only make the most of SaaS by integrating with other software or other third-party tools. SaaS products work better together to enhance the product experience.
One of the biggest reasons that customers choose their SaaS is the ability to integrate. Popular SaaS tools can share data and workflows to improve the overall experience of using your product. It makes using other tools easier when you can take advantage of integrations.
Integrations can reduce switching, and improve the power of your SaaS tool. One SaaS cannot provide all functionality, and integrating multiple tools can result in a combination of different functions. SaaS integrations have a strong appeal to potential customers who want to combine their workflows.
Key Elements:
- API accessibility and integration with popular apps like Zapier enable custom workflows
- Enabling seamless workflows by connecting the SaaS product to existing tools so they can share data
- Customization options through integrations.
Importance: SaaS products are only as good as the tools they integrate with. Integrations help users maximize the value of the SaaS product by connecting data and workflows. SaaS tools work better together and customers will often pick a product based on the available integrations.
Example:
Zapier enables customers to easily join many apps together by creating a Zap, improving the usability of products with custom integrations.
5. The support function: the core of customer satisfaction
What does a customer do when they need help? Contact your support team.
As intuitive as your product should be, customers will inevitably run into problems. There needs to be a way to contact customer support in SaaS products, whether that’s email, live chat, chatbots, or social media.
Offering timely support to customers is a key part of the SaaS product experience. As well as offering self-service, customer support should be ready to answer tickets to help customers with product success.
Every SaaS product should offer customer support as a way to solve problems. A well-rounded customer support team can improve product retention and customer engagement.
Key Elements:
- Full coverage over 24/7 live chat, email support, or helpdesk systems meet customers on different channels.
- Self-service knowledge base, documentation, and tutorials enable customers to help themselves.
- Developing community forums and user groups to encourage participation, sharing ideas and best practices.
Importance: Customers get the most out of your product when you provide them with timely and helpful support. Excellent support improves customer satisfaction and reduces churn by enabling them to overcome common problems.
Example:
Intercom allows your business to offer comprehensive support to your users whenever they have a question. Driven by AI, Intercom supercharges your support team with features like chatbots, live chat, and phone calls.
6. Analytics and reporting: data-driven insights
An important part of software is data. SaaS companies turn data to their advantage to offer another feature for users.
SaaS products need to allow their users to report back on product usage. Analytics and reporting are a key feature of software that enables users to get more out of the product, and report on successes and failures.
SaaS products can utilize their data to help customers make key decisions. The role of data-driven insights in a SaaS product is part of what sells the product, giving an overview of product usage, engagement and trends. Enabling customers to understand how they are using your product lets them be productive and get more out of the software.
Data analysis and reporting helps users understand whether your product is useful and motivates them to keep using it.
Key Elements:
- Real-time dashboards and customizable reports give visibility to users.
- Key metrics tracking such as usage, engagement, and revenue offer instant insight to users.
- Visualizations are an accessible way to enable users to make data-backed decisions.
Importance: Analytics help customers optimize their use of the product and make strategic decisions. Reporting gives insight into product usage, success and failure, and shows customers where they need to make changes. Data analytics provide more value to customers.
Example:
Mixpanel offers detailed data insights for businesses that want to learn more about their product and customers.
7. Security: reliability and trust
A SaaS product is accessed over an internet connection. This provides opportunities for malicious actors to attack your product or users might inadvertently compromise security. SaaS products handle data that needs to be protected for the sake of their users.
SaaS companies owe it to their users to offer security for the product, protecting the company’s reputation and reassuring customers that their data is safe. Security features ensure data privacy and trust in the product.
Following data security protocols results in a better product and is an essential part of delivering working SaaS. It guards against security breaches and contributes to the outstanding reputation of your business.
Key Elements:
- Access for users through end-to-end encryption, two-factor authentication, and secure payment systems.
- Offering data backup, disaster recovery, and compliance with regulations like GDPR.
- Conducting regular security audits and updates to keep software secure.
Importance: Customers for your SaaS are looking for a secure product that protects their data. Security plays a critical role in building customer trust and meeting compliance requirements. Many customers will not even consider investing in your SaaS unless you offer robust security measures.
Example:
Zoom prioritizes security and data privacy for participants who are engaging in meetings and sharing their data over the internet.
8. Pricing model: all access pass
Another key “face” of SaaS is how companies choose to price their products. Different pricing models appeal to different target audiences and contribute to the marketing of your company.
Pricing models influence product adoption and user base growth. You can invite new users to your product with freemium models and then encourage them to upgrade after a certain usage. Tools like Slack allow many users to access their service for free while offering a premium subscription for organizations.
Different tiers enable you to appeal to a diverse customer base. Pricing your product appropriately allows you to attract customers who are suited to your software, and enables them to benchmark against others in your industry. SaaS pricing reflects the value of the product.
Key Elements:
- Freemium, subscription-based, or usage-based pricing to suit the model of your SaaS business.
- Obvious pricing tiers that can flexibly accommodate different business sizes.
- Transparent cost structure with access to software that avoids hidden fees.
Importance: Pricing directly affects user acquisition, scaling, and revenue. Pricing needs to reflect revenue needs while being at a price point that customers can afford. Pricing should be comparable to other tools in the space, and be sufficient to recoup customer acquisition cost. It’s straightforward to attract new users with a freemium tier, and turn them into paid users at a later point in their journey.
Example:
Trello operates a strong freemium model to attract millions of users to their product. Paid plans help organizations get more out of Trello, while many users find value in the freemium plan for personal projects.
9. Interation and innovation: continuous development
SaaS products are continually updated. Users expect regular new features and capabilities to justify their ongoing subscription cost, and new customers will be enticed by a more competitive product.
The role of regular updates and product innovation in SaaS provides value to users, showing that your product is continuously developed and iterated. Your team is invested in the development of your product and frequently improving it.
Updates should be made in response to user feedback as well as according to your product roadmap. New releases can entice more users to try your product and help retain existing customers. It shows your product is evolving and keeping pace with market demands.
Key Elements:
- Consistent feature releases, bug fixes, and improvements to the product offer more value.
- Take into account customer feedback for product development to give a sense of ownership.
- Develop a product that stays ahead of market trends and competition, continuously offering new and improved features.
Importance: Ongoing product development helps users remain engaged and satisfied over the long-term. They have no reason to consider an alternative product when they know your team will take into account their ideas and suggestions. A product that is always improving helps with customer retention.
Example:
GitHub keeps a changelog for all notable product updates that keeps users in the loop and showcases value.
Final remarks
The key “faces” of a SaaS product come together to provide working software. UI, UX, core functionality, integrations, support, analytics, security, pricing, and innovation are the common threads between all SaaS products, and neglecting any one of these can severely compromise the success of your product.
All of these elements work together to create a highly appealing, user-centric product. After all, customers like what’s familiar, and they want your software to solve a problem. Without the UI, they can’t even access your product. Security assures customers that your product is reliable.
Provide users with what they want and they will reward you with their business. Develop a SaaS product that fulfills all these functions to meet user expectations and drive revenue growth for your company.
