The key to a successful cloud business has a direct correlation as to how the customers feel when they are using the product; the entire journey from signing up to trying each and every feature offered, to communication with the brand’s team, to the billing stage, to the after-sales service, the entire ecosystem of the brand and so on.
Imagine after searching the Internet for a decent steakhouse in town, a customer decided to give it a go, to actually drive to that restaurant, to have an amazing dinner. Everything looks tantalizing in the website with that sharp picture of a juicy, perfectly charred and glossy steak, and the fancy interior of a restaurant that sets one’s expectation up high.
But the question is, could that steakhouse deliver those expectations and leave the customers feeling satisfied, and wanting to leave that much-needed glowing review online to entice more potential customers? The answer, of course, starts with the service the customer receives at the entrance of the restaurant…
Cultivating Service Culture in Subscription Business
The concept of service remains a challenge for the majority of subscription companies in this century. What have an IT company got to do with providing services like a steakhouse? As the race between software providers begin, as to who could churn the best and most features to the subscribers, one area that needs a second hard look is whether have we delivered those feature to our customers to the best of our abilities? Not only function wise but also to reach the level of easy-to-use experience. Have we provided enough service for our customers that are using our solutions? Or we just let them figure it out on their own because apparently, we have provided those important features? Quoting Einstein, “Any fool can complicate things; it takes a genius to simplify them.”, and the struggle is real for many cloud developers to deliver this part of the deal, the service.
Take for example TimeTec TA as a cloud attendance system; it is a cloud-based software on a subscription basis that empowers any company in any industry to easily collect its workforce attendance data, automates an array of schedules and rosters, calculates the time data accurately and applies the data to impact the business. What the software offers does sound amazing and it could potentially provide a very useful tool for a range of businesses across various industries. But, have we managed to deliver the clients’ objectives effortlessly and effectively?
Collaboration between the marketing team and the research & development team have successfully produced shortcuts, guides, wizards, tips, videos, support system and many more to assist our newly minted customers in navigating through the solution. On scheduling, for example, Nattalina Zainal, our Senior Marketing Manager commented, “It took the team months to deliver the wizard to simplify the complicated scheduling for time attendance because the fact is, not one schedule and roster fits all (companies) but all companies need to automate their scheduling via the solution easily. People these days are jittery and system complication can only persuade them to quit on us totally. In the end, we managed to deliver the wizard and the guides, but moving along, everything needs a revisit, a touch up on cosmetics with customer satisfaction at the center of the discussion.”
With subscription business, development and improvement is a never-ending process and it’s important now than never that we incorporate customer service delivery along the way.
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| With Wizard, all customers have to do is to answer all questions provided, and everything will be set accordingly. However, we as a developer must ensure to not leave anything behind in our effort to deliver excellent services to our clients. |
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| The guides are available throughout TimeTec solutions with one objective: to make the brand experience a breezy one. |
There is no telling how far have we successfully made our clients feel like they fancy our solution or do they actually struggle along the way in silence in the hope that at the end of the day, everything will fall into places? Of course, there are some compliments and complaints along the way but the definite answer to cement our certainty is still a blur at this moment.
When in Doubt, Return & Listen to the Data
Data is an invaluable asset in subscription business and this is where the gold mine is. It presents the opportunity to get to know our clients better in order to deliver the best services, providing them with more values of their investment. The simplest way of analyzing customer satisfaction would be on the conversion/renewal rate vs termination rate. The conversion rate/renewal rate provides us a gleam of hope indicating that we do deliver what the customers want to a certain extent, but it is in no way a license for us to be complacent and stop improving ourselves. And termination rate presents us with lost opportunities, reminding us that if we do not deliver what the customers want, the customers won’t tolerate the brand.
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| https://www.timetecleave.com/setup_guide_started |
But those apparent results are not the only data indicative of what’s been happening around our solutions. Big efforts are needed to dig deep into the data of the whole solutions to find the clues as to what customers are leaving behind or not. From the handful of features that we proudly offer, which ones are being used and which ones are being left untouched? Is the App being utilized to its full abilities or the countless hours put on its development time generates only 5% of usage amongst the client pool? If indeed the number is too low, how would we boost the usage of the amazing App?
Conventionally, businesses turned to Customer Survey to obtain the feedback from the people who are using the products; these days the data speaks louder than words because the data IS the truth. And we need to intently listen to the data in order to deliver even better services to our worldwide customers, trust me it’s not an easy task.
Engage with Customers for A Successful Cloud Journey
Once that customer arrives at that fancy steakhouse, has he/she been greeted properly? Shown the table? Presented with the menu? Read the specials? Served with warm buns and perfectly temperature water at the table while he/she gazed through the menu? Orders are taken properly? The kitchen crew is ready and performing? and etc. While the challenge of running a restaurant is immediate and direct, the challenge of providing service in subscription business is amplified when the delivery of these services is mostly virtual and in silence. While the product and research and development teams are cracking their heads thinking of ways to deliver simplicity and great services throughout the solutions and their Apps, it doesn’t mean that we don’t have or cannot do anything outside of the system.
As a brand, it’s imperative that we reach out to our customers and offer our assistance in person. It’s rather ironic for an online subscription business to physically reach out to their customers but the reality demands. This is where Customer Success Team plays its pivotal role in the whole brand experience journey. From the get-go, the team must tailor the engagement based on multiple elements. The engagement needs to be beneficial to the receiving end rather than superficial. Engagement just for the sake of engagement is off-putting and customers are smart enough to distinguish. As such, Customer Success Team needs to connect based on the customers’ appropriate experience, be smart enough to manage customer’s expectations, know how to set joint accountability from the starting point, deliver successful milestones along the way and quick to fill in the gap in between to make customers feel serviced and happy.
