The Service Program Differentiator for SaaS Companies

Services are usually an after thought in a SaaS Company’s Strategic plan. Most of the services are architected out of survival mode, rather than a thoughtful approach to what is needed for the Software company to be a leader in their market.

In previous articles I mentioned the idea of evaluating the difference between what the product can deliver on its own and what value outcomes are required to be delivered for customers to realize a 2X or higher ROI.

What if you created a best practice methodology and approach to solving the problems in your market in a unique manner that could guarantee a 2X to 4X ROI?  My bet is that the Sales team would be happy to deliver that message with every prospect. It would also get many sales cycles unstuck and moving towards a close.

I would encourage every software company that requires implementation support to consider creating a best practice Services Program(s) that will drive repeatable results for customers. These programs will be the key to delivering your Customer Roadmap plan that will guide customers through a phased approach and enable them to expand wall to wall with your solution throughout their company.

Customers like to see the services offerings as a packaged program. The Marketing team can have some fun creating a unique name for the thought leadership approach to ensuring customers can realize the business impact your solution offers. Use the Services Program as a differentiator in the sales cycle and brand marketing to separate yourself from your competitors. Be the company that innovates the space with a unique approach to driving a business impact for customers.

How do you create a unique services program?

To create the right programs that drive a differentiated service that delivers the value and ROIs customers expect, it starts with having an articulated GTM strategy with detailed plays defined for each market segment. Without this, you will end up developing a very generic implementation approach and not be able to define a specific program that delivers value outcomes that are specific enough to guarantee an ROI. 

The program(s) should have 6 elements:

1. Value Outcomes for the specific GTM Play

2. Value Outcomes that can be measured with metrics or KPIs

3. A Best Practice Framework

4. Defined Processes, standards, policies and procedures to operationalize the best practice

5. A detailed project plan that guides the customer through a step-by-step approach to executing the program

6. Maturity Model with clear definitions of the capabilities required from an Adhoc state to a Predictive state

The Services Programs will weave these elements together into an easy-to-understand Customer Roadmap plan with detailed project plans for each phase to guide customers through their ability to operationalize your solution and mature their organization to realize the ROIs on an on-going basis. 

1. Defining the Program Value Outcomes

I shared how to create a GTM Strategic Framework and plan in a previous article . In the GTM framework, I recommend that you define specific plays for each defined market segment. Each play has well defined value outcomes and metrics to measure to prove a 2X or higher ROI. When creating a services program, I recommend creating a program to go with each GTM play that will ensure customer results.

An example is with a corporate performance management solution. One of the market segments was Enterprise. The solution was focused on simplifying customer’s financial consolidations and maintaining compliance. The value outcomes were to reduce Finance close cycle times and automate corporate consolidation reporting. A specific Services Program was defined with a best practice approach to Financial consolidation and compliance that reduced cycle times and automated the consolidation and reporting. The Services program was offered with the appropriate software licensing as a holistic solution. It was named the STAR Program.

The idea is to define value outcomes that can be measured.  This ensures you can baseline these metrics before the software solution is operationalized and then measure after and in the future in 30 to 60 day increments to prove the ROI.

2. Value Outcomes that can be measured with metrics or KPIs

As each Services program is defined for each GTM play, the value outcomes would be defined for each program. These value outcomes can be defined to impact any of the following:

• Increase Revenue

• Cost Savings

• Improve Productivity

• Reduce process or cycle times

• Reduce data errors

• Automation

• Increase Role or Capacity of Team

The best way to define value outcomes is in a statement form with a goal that can be measured. Using the example above of a Corporate Performance Management solution with a GTM play defined for Enterprise Global Manufacturing market segment, the value outcomes examples could be:

 A. Reduce Financial close cycle time from 10 days to under 4 days

B. Meet 100% of SOC II compliance.

C. 100% of all subsidies automatically map and roll up to Corporate HQ.

3. Define a best practice framework

The key to Services Programs is to guide the customer from where they are today in maturity, effectiveness and efficiencies to the vision your solution can deliver. This requires a step by step plan that customers can easily understand and follow.

When designing a best practice framework, think about incorporating best practices in how to standardize their processes, policies and procedures that will enable the technology to deliver on the value outcomes. The technology is the easiest part of the implementation. It is the definition of people and processes that is the key to designing the right configuration of the solution to drive to the end result. The Best Practice Framework design will encompass all of these into a well thought out plan that helps guide the customer through the process required to ensure a successful launch and on-going value realization.

Most best practices frameworks include :

1. Best Practice Methodology Project Plan

2. Recommended best practice standards, policies and procedures

3. Definitions of roles and responsibilities

4. Reporting defined at various levels to measure and track business impacts

5. Value Outcomes with metrics to measure results

6. Value and Realization ROIs tracked

The consulting team or team that has been conducting the implementations are a good source to contribute towards designing the best practice. I also recommend utilizing industry experts or other experts in the area the software serves to help develop some best practices that are required to ensure the implementation can launch with high value outcomes being realized 100 percent of the time.

4. Define Processes, standards, policies and procedures to operationalize the best practice

Once the best practices framework is defined it will become clear what processes, standards, policies and procedures will need to be included in the plan to be created, modified or eliminated to ensure the customer can operationalize the solution.

As the solution is operationalized, it becomes indispensable to the customer as it is being utilized to manage important or critical business processes required for them to operate.

When defining the best practices methodology and plans, consider adding recommended modifications to the standards, policies and procedures that your customers have in place today to enable the technology to become operationalized within a set of processes.

Most of the software companies that I helped build a best practice approach, we considered each of the customer roles that owned various parts of the process. We asked the customer to educate us on how they do their job today. This allowed us to then show them how they would do their job in the future with the technology, which included the changes in their processes, standards, policies or procedures to optimize the process. It always helps customers to understand the vision when they can see the changes in the processes operating in the new technology.

5. A detailed project plan that guides the customer through a step-by-step approach to executing the program

Every services program should have a project plan that follows the best practice methodology to help guide the customer through the implementation plan.

Customers love a well thought out plan that shows the detailed tasks and assignments recommended with the dates suggested to achieve their Launch date. It helps everyone align on the who, what, and when across all teams.

The Project plan should have detailed tasks associated with each stage of the methodology using the basic project management approach which generally includes the following stages:

• Plan

• Discover

• Build

• Test

• Deploy

Clearly, you can add additional stages based on what is considered your best practice recommendation for ensuring a successful implementation. For example, if you have a formal education program required, you would add this into either Plan or Discover stage or create a separate stage for the recommended education plan.

6. Maturity Model with clear definitions of the capabilities required from an Adhoc state to a Predictive state

Maturity models can be helpful in some solutions and markets when the solution is more complex and solves more challenging problems. It is usually used when the solution to the problem requires some form of business and/or digital transformations, which require more extensive changes in the People and Processes in order to enable the Technology to be operationalized.

I have found customers to actually enjoy reviewing maturity models and doing self assessments on where they fall in the various stages of the maturity model. They will even share that various departments are in different stages of maturity which helps them to realize their own challenges internally.

We all know that many failed software implementations are merely due to the lack of commitment or internal challenges on the customer side. Using a maturity model and getting alignment with the customer on where they stand on the various levels of maturity is important to get their buy in on the importance of having their committed team members and sponsors support in driving the changes required internally to their roles, responsibilities and processes.

Here is an example of the maturity model I use with my clients when putting together a Customer Lifecycle Model to drive repeatable customer success to improve retention and drive expansion.

Building a world class Service approach to ensuring all customers achieve success with high value outcomes requires a well thought out program or set of programs that includes a best practice approach with all the elements discussed above.

Think about creating an approach with specific outcomes that are measurable so you can track the metrics to help customers realize an ROI of at least 2-3X their software and services spend for your solution.

By Marketing these Services Programs as a unique solution that compliments your software and is the key to driving 2X or higher ROIs in a short period, you will differentiate yourself from the competitive pack. Sales and CS can easily promote these value messages and shorten sales cycles, because customers love an easy to understand program that clearly tells them how they get from where they are to the vision you have presented with your solution.

Keep in mind that CS is not about making HAPPY customers, it is about making a BUSINESS IMPACT for the customers that will create raving fans and a long term commitment to investing in your solution.

As always, we welcome your feedback and inputs. Please share our Newsletter and SUBSCRIBE. Thank you.