SaaS Spotlight: Skillfully Navigating the World of Cloud Software

In today's hyper-connected and highly competitive business landscape, providing excellent customer support is more critical than ever. The rise of the Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) model has changed the way companies deliver their products and services, with many customers now expecting instant and responsive support through various channels.

Whether you are a SaaS provider, an enterprise-level company, or a small business, customer satisfaction should always be a top priority.

But what exactly does it take to excel in customer support as a service?

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In most organizations, there's an extensive "shadow IT" network, also known as a shadow IT system.

In every mid-size and large organization, there's usually an extensive interconnected network of approved software solutions and systems. In some cases, these software or hardware solutions are proprietary and have been developed exclusively for that organization.

However, since the turn of the century, there has been rapid proliferation of cloud-based software, hardware, apps, and other systems that organizations are now using. Businesses are often spending anywhere from tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars annually on software, hardware, and IT vendors and IT Service Management (ITSM) partners.

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The cloud is so much more than new-era data storage. It has grown to offer services of all kinds to businesses, healthcare organizations, educational faculties, and more. You may already be familiar with "Software as a Service" or the SaaS meaning. While that is a well-known expansion of cloud as a service, there are many other acronyms you may be unaware of. Each acronym reflects another capable service of the cloud — one or more of which may be of value to you and your organization. Continue reading as we have created a master listing of each service related to today's cloud technology.

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What Does TCO Stand For?

As everyday consumers, we often consider price one of the top indicators to justify a purchase. When we say "price," we mean the sticker price, but rarely do we factor in other costs involved with maintaining a product. The same goes for organizations. They are often home to various software and services with an upfront cost. That upfront cost is likely an attractive number, strategically formulated to obtain a signed service agreement. Licenses and maintenance fees associated with the purchase are usually a small component of the overall total cost of ownership (TCO). Where actual costs can begin to pile up are in the areas of labor to maintain software, infrastructure, and hardware.

Calculating true total ownership cost can be a tedious process, though it is necessary. Before sending your IT team out to solicit new SaaS products, be sure they have a standardized template of data to look for beyond the sticker price.

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XaaS stands for "Everything as a Service" or "Anything as a Service". It's an acronym for providing any products, tools and technologies that businesses may need as a service instead of on premise or with a physical product. The term has been popularized by cloud computing services, such as SaaS (Software as a service), IaaS (Infrastructure as a service) and PaaS (Platform as a service).

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From the right tools to adequate staffing, customer service can turn out to be an expensive venture for businesses of all shapes and sizes. Most of the expenses incurred come from in-house teams, usually those working in a call-center. If customers get off of the phone with your in-house team and still don't have a resolution to their issue, that can also be seen as both time and money wasted. This is especially true if the customer decides to forego your business thanks to that particular experience.

According to Hannah Steiman of Peak Support, there are a few ways in which in-house customer service can become costly:

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With continued growth in computer and hand-held device use in the lives of many brings increasing technical questions and problems that arise. And so, the field of supporting these systems grows along with it, which brings business opportunities for entrepreneurs, and employment opportunities for support personnel.

But there are different types of support needs accompanied by varying required responsibilities and skills. The following are the differences between, and skills required for, three common areas of support: Help Desk, Technical Support, and Desktop/Deskside Support.

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On Monday, August 19th, Giva customer, The MetroHealth System, launched a new internal Human Resources (HR) service using Giva's HIPAA compliant SaaS Customer Self-Service Portal. The MetroHealth System has for the past five years already been utilizing Giva's Service Management Suite™ in the cloud for their IT Service Desk and a number of other departments such as Facilities and Environmental Services. They are now pleased to be expanding their services by offering Giva's Customer Self-Service Portal to their employees in an effort to offer streamlined HR services.

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Help desks are typically grouped according to their form of deployment, the size of a client's business and whether the software's source code is accessible and easy to alter. When searching for the perfect help desk, you must take these elements into consideration. The following is an explanation of the five main types of help desk examples currently on the market:

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