3 ways our SaaS users took me by surprise

Running a SaaS platform requires constant adjustments. Every new user means new feedback and insight, and if you care about staying relevant, you’re going to take their words into consideration — especially if the improvement will give you a leg up over your competition 1. Users are much more likely to give you feedback than you think. We do encourage leaving us feedback in many different places. We mention that on our website, in our newsletter, and on the platform itself. I didn’t put too much faith into that, but our users really want to share their thoughts. Not only do they say what needs improvement, but also give us ideas for new functionalities. And more than that, they appreciate being heard. Moreover, we make sure to note down everything of importance from each conversation & demo call with clients. We ask them: what they liked about the product, what made them interested in the first place, what kind of business problems they wanted to solve, and what’s currently missing. We note down the answers in the spreadsheet — later on, we can analyze them and figure out any patterns, which is particularly useful for Strategy and Development meetings. And if clients themselves want to reach out to us, we make that as simple as possible. They can do so via live chat on our website, email, or join our Discord server. 2. Onboarding new clients is extremely difficult. As a passionate gamer, I should have seen that one coming. After all, how many times did I skip the tutorial on the first run-through? And then I had to go back because we didn’t get the controls? I think we are all guilty of that. We don’t want to be led by hand as if we were some kids; we want to get right into action. So yes, users are more likely to rage-click all over the platform instead of going through the onboarding. No matter how funny or interesting the onboarding is, your users will want to skip it. It must be some kind of an instinct. That’s why it’s so important for your platform to be as intuitive and easy as possible, while your demo content should be short and sweet. Because if your user doesn’t find what they’re looking for quickly enough, they’ll simply leave. And never come back. 3. They do want a community. Just not where you think. Could you believe it when I say that SaaS users actually want to join an online community? I wouldn’t have believed that, too. When we created our Slack community, there were few users and even smaller engagement. We assumed that people are simply not interested in having a direct connection to our team. But once we moved the community to Discord, people kept signing up. More than that — they actually used it, mentioning bugs and asking questions about the platform or features to be implemented. I consider that a success. What’s best about Discord, is how you can organize your server. You can create separate spaces for users to report bugs and feature requests, as well as stay informed on the news and changes. From a client’s perspective, that’s much more attractive than a simple Facebook group or a newsletter. From ours, having everything in one place is heavenly. Although, when it comes to bugs — for some reason, users prefer to DM us anyway. Heads up: be ready to see some interesting nicknames!