The $2 Million Dollar Man (/Woman): How to Think About Scaling Your Customer Success Team
In SaaS, there are a lot of great “rules” that do make sense overall but can be confusing or borderline misleading at times. E.g., Sales +Marketing Expenses < First Year ACV = Success? Great rule — at Scale. But maybe not while you are scaling. E.e.g., if Churn > 2% = Bad, Just Terrible. Well […]
How Cheap a Product Can You Have And Still Have Salespeople?
One question I struggled with a lot in the early days was what price points supported inside sales reps. It was clear to me that our freemium offering, priced at from $0 to $19/month, couldn’t really support a traditional inside sales team. And it became clear to me that five-figure or larger ACV deals could […]
Want better support? Then make that part of your buying criteria.
I was very entertained when I read a recent blog post complaining about the crappy customer service you get from big internet companies. The writer titled it, “Hey internet giants, you’re no longer startups, get some customer service.” I was entertained for two reasons. The first is that it’s quite possible for a startup to […]
FinancialForce 2012 Release–Delivering a Loosely Coupled Set of Solutions
Nicely timed to coincide with next week’s DreamForce conference comes the summer 2012 release from FinancialForce, the cloud accounting company that is both part owned by Salesforce, and built upon the force.com platform. While product announcements tend to be a little ho-hum, this one is interesting since it comes from
Ooma Phone Service Goes Down, So Does the Website. Company Sleeps Through It.
The one thing a phone service can’t do is to simply disappear. And it is normally those times we realize how much of a lifeline it still is. Like I did, expecting a call from my Dad’s cardiologist re. his hospitalization. Waiting, waiting, I was getting p***d with the poor doc, when I noticed the […]
Why Microsoft is 3X Better than Apple for Customer Support
Tweet The Apple versus Microsoft product debate has been a constant, four decade campaign. There are proponents on both sides. While recently Apple has emerged the trendier of the two, does having trendier products translate into superior customer support? In the last few months I have met with both the Apple and Microsoft teams in […]
Why customer service can’t be outsourced
After briefly participating in last night’s #custserv chat, I found myself dissatisfied with chats like these via a medium like that. I like to get definitions straightened out and agreed upon when they get “volatile” so to say. So, for future chats, please find a web page that does (and can be scanned in a […]
Game Changing Customer Support Communities (Presentation)
The following was the Presentation I gave at the Gilbane Conference in Boston Self-Service support communities are beginning to replace the help desk for internal and external customer support. In fact, these communities are simultaneously reducing costs (less support calls) and increasing revenue (SEO lead generation). Follow along as I explore the history of documentation […]
About that Second “S” in SaaS – Awesome Service
”There is an app for that” – say the Apple commercials. “There is a plugin for that” – was my conclusion, while lookin for the rigth tools to move the Enterprise Irregulars blog to WordPress a few months ago. Seriously. The WordPress ecosystem is simply amazing, things that a few years ago required messing with […]
Why I Quit Reddit – Actually, Reddit Quit Me
Three years ago I was quite active on Reddit – at least for a while, until I realized just how manipulated it became. I’m not really holding it against reddit, the same happens on Digg and probably on all similar sites – nothing new here, you’ve probably read all this a thousand times, so I […]
Customer Support in the Facebook and Twitter Era
I’ve been a follower of Helpstream CEO Bob Warfield since before I begun blogging. He’s a super smart, super analytical SaaS commentator who left the world of full time blogging to enjoy the rewards of corporate leadership. I’d have made this session no matter what, the fact it included a bunch of other really smart […]
The Future Of Small Web Hosts In The Cloud Era
The public clouds are yet to have a significant impact on the enterprise market but it has built up its success among the startups and SMBs who are more interested in the cost savings offered by the clouds. The success of Amazon stirred up the hosting provider market big time. Some of the big hosting […]
Skype is not Only VOIP: It Reigns in IM But How Long?
Nowadays the only context we hear about Skype is the legal fight (care to bet how long it will take for the previous Net Celebs to become the Hated Greedy Ones who try to sc**w all of us?) – I would much rather read about new features, improvements. After all, Skype is the single most […]
The New Lenovo: Nice Hardware, Dumb Support
Lenovo, home of the (formerly IBM) Thinkpad’s is not exactly known as a price leader: those Thinkpads have a great reputation and a matching price-tag. But times are changing, and Lenovo is becoming budget-friendly: the recently announced Ideapad U series, the G550, and the all-in-one Ideacentre are all “cool” computers with an attractive price. For […]
Are Free Customers Disposable?
Image by CC Chapman via Flickr Phil Wainewright writes on ZDNet.com about how web giants are treating their customers More than any of these acts, though, the most constructive change would be to get rid of the mindset that leads these Web giants to belittle the circumstances of its ‘consumers’. Is it unreasonable of us […]
