As part of the ritual of examining local commerce and SMB Saas strategies, Localogy goes right to the source: SMBs themselves. How do they feel about marketing and operational software? What features do they want? And how has their hunger changed in a post-pandemic world? This is all a moving target.
Localogy’s Modern Commerce Monitor (MCM) answers these and other questions across the SMB SaaS product set, which we preview in this Benchmark Bytes series. And we recently entered a new chapter of this series, with highlights from the latest wave (8.0) of Modern Commerce Monitor.
After examining how engaged (or disengaged) SMBs are after purchasing SaaS, we switch gears to examine areas of improvement that could boost that engagement. Where can SaaS vendors upgrade their offerings to make them more sticky for the average SMB? This can be a key demand signal.
Data Dive
– Diving right in, the most popular area of software improvement is to make it simpler. 67 percent of respondents chose this answer, stating that too many features make the software difficult to use.
– This leading answer isn’t surprising, given common tech-challenged SMB personas.
– The good news is that there could be some evolution in aggregate SMB tech savvy, given that this answer was down from 74 percent in Wave 6 of the survey.
– Next on the list is better expectation setting about what the software can and can’t do, with 61 percent of respondents.
– This is more of a sales & marketing issue than a product development matter.
– Like the above answer, this survey sentiment dropped considerably from wave 6, going from 71 percent to 61 percent, meaning that SMB SaaS sales & marketing practices may be improving.
– Third on the list at 55 percent of responses was “A better initial training process.”
– This response comes from a similar place than the above two answers, in that it reflects the tech-challenged state of SMBs in the aggregate.
– Having better onboarding and training is a key component of not only customer satisfaction but also retention. If SMBs feel that they are using the software adequately – and thus getting a strong ROI – they’re less likely to churn.
– Further down the list are several sentiments that deal with customer service, including “better proactive support after initial onboarding” (43 percent), Live 24/7 on-demand support (35 percent), and chatbot-based support (22 percent).
– These support functions represent hard costs for SMB SaaS players, but could be worth the investment, given the impact on customer satisfaction and retention.
– AI could come to the rescue in engendering more effective and cost-efficient chatbots, which could be a meaningful development in the SMB SaaS world.
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Long-Tail Opportunity
Stepping back, SMB online marketing – as well as operational and fintech tools – continues to grow rapidly. SMB SaaS startups and online service providers are correspondingly thriving as it continues to grow as a leading subsector of the broader SaaS universe. There’s a long-tail opportunity at play.
Meanwhile, new SMB SaaS users could represent permanent adopters – a concept that accelerated in the Covid era as SMBs were forced into digital transformation. This sent them into the arms of SaaS providers (where many have stayed) to accomplish a range of marketing and operational functions.
We’ll return in the next installment to go deeper into Localogy original survey research. That will include SMB goals and success factors. Let us know what additional insights jump out at you from the above data, and stay tuned for more breakdowns in our Benchmark Bytes series.
