SaaSocratic Oath
- Posted December 2nd, 2008
- Filed under: Customer Service, Technology, User Experience
With the imminent demise of several prominent Software as a Service (SaaS) businesses recently announced, I’m sure folks are wondering about the reliability of this “cloud computing”. People who are trusting their relationships, their daily routines and their future fortunes to an unknown, unseen geek posse at the other end of the Internet deserve more respect. Honestly, I think these trusting folks have taken it on the chin this week.
As SaaS developers, we’re not building tools that people pick up, use, and put down again when they are done. Our code isn’t burned on a disk, packaged up and then sent off to be sold at some superstore. We can’t just walk away when we’re tired of playing the game, or get a better offer from a cooler friend.
That’s not how it works when selling software as a SERVICE. We are building a relationship with every single person using our product and we have an obligation to take care of them. Not to legally cover our butts, but to really take care of our customers; to listen to how they are using our product, involve them in the implementation of our vision, to give ample warning if something unforeseen does happen, and do everything in our power to make sure they will be okay without us.
With this goal in mind, we at BatchBlue make the following pledge to our users:
- We value the information that you are trusting to our care.
- We will do all in our power to educate you on how to best use our system to manage your information.
- We understand that the information belongs to you and that you should have easy access to it at any time from anywhere.
- We will give you the time and tools to export your data, for whatever the reason.
- We keep service to you as our highest priority.
- We will keep improving our product.
We are in this for the long haul. We have big plans for our product and for anyone gracious enough to subscribe to our service. Thank you for your business; we continue to be honored to support you.
Pam,
Great to see you putting this message out.
The draw of cloud-based services is huge, but at the back of my mind is always the “what if” question. I know many bright people who would really like to use SaaS but just can’t bring themselves to trust it, and many people who have started using it may well retrench over the coming months if web-services firms keep failing. Indeed we have moved some parts of our business back to our own servers “just in case” when using products that are great, but we don’t feel the firm is 100% committed to their future success.
The key indicators for me are; how fast is the firm developing their service, and how engaged are they with the individuals using the service. If they are doing both, and the product is good of course, there is a great likelihood that they will thrive even in a bad economy. Keep doing exactly what you guys are doing!
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