Delayed ROI signal from licensed products — Victoria Zhang // Salesforce
- Part 1Understanding who is the user vs customer? — Victoria Zhang // Salesforce
- Part 2 Delayed ROI signal from licensed products — Victoria Zhang // Salesforce
Show Notes
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01:01SaaS business models and delayed ROIThe two most popular models are consumption-based and license-based. Theres delayed ROI in a license-based SaaS business as good and bad product experiences dont arent reflected in revenue during the period of the contract.
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03:59ROI delay in license based SaaS productsIn a license-based SaaS model, companies contract for a period, and decisions about product continuation occur at contract renewal. This poses a challenge for analysts to link daily user experiences to future renewal decisions.
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05:36Building prediction models to deal with ROI delay in license based SaaS productsUnderstanding product utilization and its trajectory by tracking usage trends over time helps identify patterns like increased or decreased usage. These trendlines enable early detection of concerning signals and facilitate interventions to ensure customers derive optimal value
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07:35Strategies for extrapolating early usage signals into predictive insightsAnalysts and data scientists must be involved in early product discussions to define success criteria, translating them into trackable data points for accurate prediction models. Feeding data into models from the product's inception ensures that prediction models become more accurate over time.
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10:50Instrumentation driving decision makingInstrumentation refers to translating things or actions we want to measure into data points. As more things are added to your instrumentation, you can get more rich information about the product experiences and help to drive the right kind of decision-making.
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13:09Driving customer value for long term financial successThe goal is for your product to deliver value to customers beyond revenue. By using predictive models to understand and replicate successful customer patterns, you can drive overall customer success and long-term financial growth for your company.
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15:09Supporting SaaS users and customers for successBeing customer-centric involves leveraging various channels, from improving the product to offering implementation assistance and user training, to ensure user and customer success. Its critical to utilize all of these avenues to drive success for users and customers.
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20:30Understanding the limitations of data accuracy for decision makingRecognizing the limitations of data accuracy, it's essential to trust intuition, conduct experiments, and be patient with success while running a business. The aim is to offer "good enough" information for experimentation, measurement, and iterative improvement in decision-making.
Quotes
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"The best company is a customer-first company. If you bring value to the customer, revenue is a byproduct of that." - Victoria Zhang
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"Theres delayed ROI in a license-based SaaS business. As analysts, when we're thinking about bad user experiences today, we need to imagine the future and how this is going to impact long-term customer loyalty." - Victoria Zhang
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"Prediction is a technique that will benefit from more data points. If we dont have instrumentation on a certain product feature from day one, we have even thinner data to feed into prediction models." - Victoria Zhang
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"Instrumentation is a way to turn the real world into digital data points." - Victoria Zhang
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"Sometimes we need to have good intuition to say, I've looked at the data, this gives me enough competence that we should test this method. If it doesn't work, let's shift the gear and do something else." - Victoria Zhang
- Part 1Understanding who is the user vs customer? — Victoria Zhang // Salesforce
- Part 2 Delayed ROI signal from licensed products — Victoria Zhang // Salesforce
Up Next:
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Part 1Understanding who is the user vs customer? — Victoria Zhang // Salesforce
Victoria Zhang, VP of Data Science at Salesforce, explores customer centricity and product performance. In the SaaS world, understanding what users are trying to achieve with our software is crucial. Yet, as users often aren't the purchasers, it's essential to communicate effectively with decision-makers who hold the buying authority. Today, Victoria discusses understanding who's the user versus the customer.
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Part 2Delayed ROI signal from licensed products — Victoria Zhang // Salesforce
Victoria Zhang, VP of Data Science at Salesforce, explores customer centricity and product performance. In the realm of consumer products, our actions and experiences often have immediate and trackable effects. However, in the world of SaaS, due to the license-based business model, making the connection between daily user experiences and future revenue is a nuanced challenge for analysts. Today, Victoria discusses why data-driven SaaS product development drastically differs from consumer products.
