How to choose software your customers will love (B2B)

Selecting the best Software as a Service (SaaS) option for your business is critical for building a customer-focused business. Choosing the right software for your customers takes time, so we’ve put together a step-by-step guide to speed up the process.

Before you can start hunting for game-changing software, you’ll need to have a clear understanding of what your customers need. For this, we recommend thorough user-requirement testing. During testing, you will gather customer feedback, map your customer journey and assess your customer’s future needs. 

1. Gathering customer feedback. 

User requirement testing relies on gathering accurate feedback from as many customers as possible. The best feedback is gained from a large sample size of customers, as each customer has different needs. 

You can generally divide your customers into three categories: 

• Detractors who are unhappy with your software. 
• Neutral customers who are neither unhappy nor happy. 
• Advocates who are happy with your software. 

Feedback from each group is equally important. Detractors will be able to tell you where your current software is failing while advocates will help you identify the most important elements of your current software. 

The best way to reach a wide sub-section of customers is through customer feedback surveys. The best customer feedback surveys are under ten questions, ask objective questions and give your customers a chance to leave comments. 

To get your customers to participate, entice them with an instantly-redeemable reward.  

2. Map your customer’s journey. 

Once you have gathered your customer data, you’ll be left with a list of criteria for your ideal software. To get you thinking, here’s a shortlist compiled by Techtimes for the best bookie software. 

• Diverse sports
• Diverse betting types
• Multi-currency support
• Multi-language support
• Real-time settlement 
• Cyber-secure software
• Social media sharing
• Widget-based API 
• eSports functionality
• Live feeds
• Admin dashboards 
• User-friendly interface

With your shortlist, you’ll be able to create a customer journey. A customer journey is a map-like sequence that demonstrates how customers interact with your software. This will help you to identify the most essential software features as well as features that don’t matter to your customers. 

When assessing different software options, use your customer journey as a framework for choosing software that meets your customer’s needs. 

3. Think about tomorrow. 

Your customer’s needs will drive your software choices, but they tend to change over time. You need software with scalability to adapt, as scalable software is flexible with: 

1. An increasing number of customers.
2. Customers with new needs. 

For an in-practice example, let’s consider the case of LAN centres in 2020. 

LAN centres offering eSports tournaments have exploded in the past five years, but they were nearly wiped off the map by COVID. Instead of accepting defeat, the best software solutions were able to be adapted to facilitate at-home gaming. 

For businesses like GG Leap, scalable software not only kept their customers engaged but increased their eSports tournament engagement. 

In the next ten years, businesses will need software that can facilitate in-person and online customers. Can your software handle that? 

Choosing the right business software for you depends on two things: the vendor and their software. When buying software as a service (SaaS), the software vendor is equally as important as the software itself. 

Why? 

You aren’t just paying for software. You’re paying for customer service, frequent software updates and a vendor-client relationship. Naturally, good SaaS vendors: 

• Will give you a service level agreement (SLA).
• Use a transparent pricing structure (like pay per head software).
• Give users a free trial.
• Provide 24/7 customer support.
• Provide training resources for their platform. 
• Provide award-winning customer service. 
• Automates your end-to-end workflow.

After you have found several good SaaS vendors, you may want to assess the suitability of several options. Before starting your free trial on each, you will need to establish whether each software:

• Meets your customer’s needs. 
• Can be integrated into your business. 
• Will provide a return on investment long term. 
• Can adapt to changes in your customer’s needs. 
• Is affordable. 

A great way to assess different software options is to compare them using a table. 

TIP! To get the most out of any SaaS product, elect a change manager to act as your point of contact with all vendors!

Always undertake a free trial before investing in any SaaS product. Free trials are a fantastic way to experience the software before you purchase it, especially if you are comparing several Pay Per Head software options.

To get the most out of your free trial you will need to conduct user testing. We recommend you invite all customers who participated in your feedback survey to undertake user testing, enticing them with an instantly redeemable reward. 

During user testing, you are looking to assess whether:

• Customers are satisfied with the software. 
• The software is can be integrated into your business. 
• Employees can adapt to the software. 
• The software will provide a longterm return-on-investment. 

After several weeks of testing, you will be left with a Pay Per Head software solution that meets your customer’s needs, integrates into your business and will grow with you. 

What do you do then? 

It may be easiest to invest in the cheapest software you can find, but you may end up paying more for it longterm. Implementing new software costs time and money, so it isn’t the sort of business decision you want to make frequently. 

Instead, the best managers won’t settle for a subpar platform that won’t last them longterm. 

As the saying goes: “you get what you pay for.”

At Realbookies, we’ve been experts in Pay Per Head software for over twenty years. In that time, we’ve learned to prioritise functionality, customer service and scalability over everything else. 

In 2020, we offer the best pay per head software on the market. 

Test out our game-changing real bookies’ software for yourself and start your free trial today.