Let's get something straight - SaaS is a disrupter. SaaS vendors are attempting to move customers from the shrink-wrapped software days of old to a new on-demand paradigm. Smart vendors understand just how sticky software is - and in no sector more than SMBs. Why is this so?

Let's look at the average SMB owner - as well as being responsible for whatever it is their business actually DOES they're also accountant, payroll clerk, legal counsel, HR adviser etc etc - they're multi-skilled but incredibly time-poor. It's for this reason that switching software solutions doesn't rate highly on their list of things to do.

This is why SaaS companies have to do everything to facilitate their prospective customers becoming actual customers - and to a certain extent this goes against the SaaS ethos. Most vendors will tell you that the world of multi-tenant software limits the support burden by ensuring that all users are running the same code - this is true.... once those customers are signed and sealed - until that time vendors need to do everything to help ease the conversion pain.

I was reminded about this the other day when I saw a post from SaaS accounting vendor Xero. Xero is a great accounting application that I personally use for my consulting business (look out for reviews of SaaS accounting offerings in the next few months), they understand just how sticky shrink-wrapped accounting software is and as such should be doing everything to help customers convert.

I was a little disappointed to see that the post linked to a third party provider who is offering 3 hour "how to use Xero" sessions - at the cost of $199 a pop. I came away thinking that this is exactly the sort of thing that the vendor themselves should be doing - often and for free - in order to gain customers.

I've posted about this issue over on my own blog - that time in relation to a truly amazing experience I had with another SaaS vendor - this time payroll provider iPayroll. I was also stoked to see this post from CEO of Freshbooks Mike McDerment - Freshbooks is a very cool company and Mike is a heck of a nice guy. As Mike puts it;

SaaS vendors need to remember that often the pain of conversion is sufficient to stop an otherwise keen business from becoming a customer - can you really afford to not ease that pain?

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