Creating great SaaS products that users will love and use in the long term isn’t an easy task. From development to business choices, you could pave the way for a great experience or driving users away. This starts at the early development of the product and not at a late stage.
Businesses and entrepreneurs developing SaaS platforms can actually make some mistakes that will impact the product for a long time, without noticing.
In this blog, we are sharing the biggest mistakes that can prevent a SaaS platform from being a great one.
Overlooking UI/UX design
Having a non-expert working on the UI/UX of your platform is a bet that you never have to make, and is very likely to be lost. A dedicated UI/UX designer is an essential investment that you need to make, to ensure the best practices are applied, and UI/UX quality is not overlooked.
UI/UX design has become essential to deliver a competitive product, and with many continuously updating practices, it needs dedication rather than being part of a team member’s work.
Hiring a mediocre team
No matter how you will invest to make your SaaS great, your team is the most important aspect of the project.
The SaaS industry has become more competitive than ever, meaning that mediocre quality isn’t acceptable. A mediocre team won’t deliver anything more than a moderate quality, and should never be your goal.
Instead, you should invest in qualified talents and experts to help you build a great product and keep it updated with fresh features that make you live up to user expectations.
Hiding important information
Information related to your SaaS solution isn’t just marketing text that you put on your website. The content on your SaaS marketing website can influence the decision of users whether to subscribe to your SaaS or not.
Being transparent with specific information, like terms of your service and your pricing is also essential. For SaaS, hiding your pricing can be considered a very bad practice that you never need to try.
Not using feedback early
Feedback is one of the most valuable tools you can use while developing your SaaS. Feedback can provide you directions and assistance in decision making like no other method, as you connect directly with the users.
To get feedback early, you need to develop an MVP for your SaaS. The Minimum Viable Product is an initial version of the software that only has the essential features, to be able to get user feedback early and test the market before launching a fully featured product with bigger investment.
Some tools like Qualtrics and Bazaarvoice can help in automating feedback collection and maximizing the number of responses you get from users.
Ignoring user on-boarding walkthroughs
Onboarding walkthroughs are becoming a norm for SaaS platforms, so you can expect users to anticipate them, and not just find them useful if they are there.
Such on-boarding walkthroughs reduce user churn rate and allow them to maximize their benefit from your SaaS, which raises the likelihood of retaining them.
Userpilot, WalkMe and Intercom are some of the tools that can help you enhance the onboarding walkthrough experience easily, without having to make a big investment.
