[Editorial Notes: SAAS industry is growing and as new players emerge (with new business model), it’s imperative that there are a few basic/ground rules that players should stick to. Not as a legal binding, but as a code of conduct ensuring that enterprise customers trust SAAS players and each player contributes to the growth of SAAS/Cloud industry. Here is a guest post by Sahil Parikh, founder of DeskAway. Sahil shares few important points that SAAS players need to look at.]
SaaS companies sell to the invisible. Hence, it becomes even more challenging to create an exceptional experience for their website visitors and customers. The vision for this Code of Conduct (CoC) is for companies to play by a set of standards so that they can delight their prospects/ customers and create a better conversion rate to grow their business.
Instant Signup
You should be able to come to our site and sign up instantly and try out the software. You will never have to fill out a form to contact sales.
Online Payments
A positive trial will allow you to subscribe to one of the paying plans. You can pay online through a credit card and once successful, you will be taken to you activated paid account immediately.
SSL Encryption
We take security seriously and any traffic to and from your computer to our server is encrypted using atleast 256-bit encryption. As proof you can see the ‘lock’ symbol on your browser’s location bar when you visit any of our secure pages.
Clear Pricing
We are transparent in our prices and plans and list out what you get when you subscribe to any of our plans. We even mention if we have a free plan to get started.
Feature/ Tour
Even before your try our software you can see a range of screenshots on what you can expect when you signup. A tour will present our value proposition and benefit to your business.
Customer Casestudies
We wouldn’t be in business without our customers. See how others have benefited from using our software by reading their stories.
System Status
We are committed maximum uptime of our software. Hence, we have made this information public to let you know our server’s past performance and downtime (if any).
Active Blog
In a virtual world where we don’t even meet our customers clear communication is becoming important. We write our candid thoughts on our blog and keep an open discussion for all our visitors.
Export Data
As a customer you own your data on our servers and are free to take a backup of it at any given time.
Help/ Support
We have a robust online help section with videos, forums, faqs so that you can self-help yourself if you get stuck. Our dedicated support email will always be open if you wish to contact us with your queries and we’d be happy to email you within 24 hours.
If there are any more points that I have missed then do let me know in the comments. If you support this CoC then do put your name and company you work for in the comments.
Recommended Read: How to Price your SaaS Application – The Definitive Guide.
[Reproduced from Sahil’s blog]
