Modern SaaS customers are evolving as quickly as the solutions they purchase. For you, that means staying in tune with customers’ changing needs in order to remain ahead of the curve and keep your sales process relevant.
As customers’ priorities shift toward long-term relationships, proactive customer experiences, and value-based selling, SaaS sales teams must adapt to differentiate themselves in a saturated marketplace. Identifying your customers’ individual needs will help you update your sales process and better address the value points they are looking for in a SaaS partner.
We’ve mapped out the new expectations customers have for sales and how you can reframe your process to accommodate them.
Building Proactive Experiences With Customer Data
New Expectation: Proactive Experiences
Modern SaaS customers are looking for brands that can anticipate their needs proactively rather than addressing them reactively. From personalized recommendations to custom sales content, buyers are looking for answers to their unique needs during the sales process. This is shifting the way sales teams perform discovery and use data in sales practices.
How to Reframe Your Process: Leverage Customer Data to Anticipate Needs
Combining the insights acquired during the research phase of discovery and using customer intent data collected during demos, your team can build customized sales practices that anticipate what your buyers value most. Introducing solutions like AI can also help your team analyze data and extract insights that will help them proactively meet expectations.
Addressing Value-Based Search With Personalized Content
New Expectation: Value-Based Search
In a marketplace full of solutions, having top-of-the-line features is no longer the differentiator it once was. Customers expect sales teams to anticipate which features mean the most to them and provide sales content that directly addresses their pain points.
How to Reframe Your Process: Offer Personalized Value Propositions
Using tools like interactive video demos, your customers can adjust your sales materials to fit their pain points — without the need for your team to create and distribute new materials. By letting buyers select the content that fits their specific needs during these demos, qualified buyers become easier to identify and are better educated by the time your sales team interacts with them.
Building Long-Term Partnerships
New Expectation: Long-Term Partnerships
The modern customer isn’t looking for a one-time transaction. Customers now prefer brands that offer them long-term value and partnership, including high-quality customer support. SaaS solutions may be easily replaceable, but a positive relationship and customer experience are not.
How to Reframe Your Process: Prioritize Your Customer Relationships
Building personal relationships during the sales process is essential, as is highlighting the long-term value your brand has for your customers. Emphasizing benefits like support, future feature updates, and customized solutions to changing needs allows your team to display a long-term commitment to your buyers.
Enabling Flexible Schedules With Demo Automation
New Expectation: Flexible Schedules
With the rise of technology, customers want access to sales materials like demos on their schedule. This means SaaS companies who rely solely on in-person demos may be left behind in the race for buyers’ attention.
How to Reframe Your Process: Use Demo Automation to Adapt to Schedules
Solutions like demo automation from Consensus allow your sales team to provide personalized demos at your customers’ convenience. These demos can be accessed, replayed, and shared without the need for scheduling or direct sales intervention — so your customers can easily interact with and learn about your brand at their preferred cadence.
Learn More About Modern Sales With Consensus
Understanding the modern SaaS customer is essential to building an effective sales strategy. But because these buyers are ever-evolving, you need to be sure you’re staying up to date as new information emerges.
Keep up with current trends and the latest technology that can boost your sales team’s performance by checking out our blogs, research, and webinars. Using expert-level insights, you can build a more effective and profitable sales process and empower your sales team.
