Getting feedback from SaaS End Users
When building a SaaS product, there are two main constituents to keep in mind - broadly speaking:
- Administrators (or Tenants). These are the people you are selling to. They buy your product because you make their life easier in terms of content creation and because your product will make their customers happy. They are also subject matter experts, power users, and often deeply specialized in whatever problem your product is solving. This group is active and vocal.
- End users. These are usually the people your customer is selling to. It could be a network of dealers, or it could be consumers. Either way, these people don't really get a say in what platform is used, and don't usually know what company is actually responsible for building that platform. They hold the Tenant accountable for the performance of the software. This group is hard to reach because you have an arm's length relationship with them.
If end users are unhappy, your customers will quickly become unhappy.
There are a decent number of solutions out there to help facilitate usability sessions, product forums, and in-app support for the Tenant group. Tools such as UserVoice, Drift, Wootric, and Intercom are all perfect for rapidly supporting and educating your customer base.
I have found trying to get to the next level can be more difficult.
Your customer, the Tenant, may not want to confuse their end users with surveys, emails, or support chats from a company the end user has never heard of. They may want to protect their brand. They may not want to lose negotiating leverage with you or their customer.
In all cases, trying to make sure your product is addressing the end user needs through qualitative and quantitative measurement is difficult - especially when their satisfaction can be a leading indicator of your product's ability to scale and succeed.
What I have tried so far:
Generic NPS surveys
I have found that injecting a generic NPS survey directly into the end-user application is far more acceptable to the Tenant group than, say, pulling an email list of all users and blasting them from our corporate account.
This comes with its own issues, as sometimes customers rate the Tenant instead of the software - but with a well crafted survey question you can start to get some good data and use it to discuss end user issues with your Tenant customer base. This turns into a valuable retention tool as you get ahead of potential issues before they bubble up organically, and your customers will appreciate the proactivity.
Asking the Tenant to survey end users on your behalf
I've had mixed results with this method. The Tenant does not like to spam their customer base, so this usually gets mixed in with a broader marketing survey - and is usually limited to once or twice per year, instead of quarterly. It also relies on a one-time email blast that you don't control. Finally, it can leave you and your sales team exposed if there were any blind spots in the product that may lead to contract renewal leverage being lost.
Attending Tenant and Industry User Conferences
What I like about this method is you get unfiltered input from customers who may feel they never get their input heard by the Tenant. You also get the chance to directly service the end user in an attempt to raise overall CSAT and NPS - all while building a stronger relationship with the Tenant.
What have you done in your SaaS product to get end user feedback? Have you found any feedback tools that can be easily white labeled and provided as a service back to your Tenants?
