More SaaS Benefits for Your Customer Support Efforts

We'd like to share a real-life example of how SaaS offers more flexibility (and reliability) than installed software.  And if you refer to our blog post just a few days ago comparing SaaS to on-prem software, you'll see the irony in the timing of it.

As a software company, the vast majority of our business is done remotely - phone conversations, live chats, email, and of course web conferences and online demonstrations.  We had one of these demonstrations scheduled earlier this week, and when the time came to be on the call with the customer, they weren't there.  We checked all the appropriate media and nothing, no phone call, no email, no idea what happened. 

Of course we reached out to ask the prospective customer to reschedule, and when we did eventually hear back from them, we couldn't believe what had happened:

A truck had hit a pole down the street and the whole block was out of power for 2 hours.  Everyone at the company was completely unable to access any of the software tools they use internally because there was no power to their servers.  They couldn’t see orders that were coming in or emails during this time.   

That's A LOT to miss out on, and I'm sure their customers weren't too impressed.  Obviously the prospective customer saw the deficiencies in this system, and was eager to learn about SaaS benefits for their business, but it really struck a note with us as to how important having a reliable system is.  For example at TeamSupport we use a Data Center to house our servers.  That center is supported by 6 backup power generators and 50,000 gallons of fuel to ensure our servers will still run, even during an extended power outage.  In fact most SaaS companies offer far more robust security and backup options than an individual company can, simply because that's what we do - we can't afford to go down for even a minute.

As for our new friends, they're actually looking at moving their entire operation to a cloud-based software to make sure this never happens again - and with TeamSupport their support reps can still handle customer inquiries no matter what happens, even if they do it from a Starbucks!