3 Ways to Establish Trust in B2B SaaS Products

The B2B SaaS world has grown exponentially in recent years. According to a mid-2022 Frontegg research, more than 70% of the funding rounds during the first half of 2022 belonged to the B2B space. B2B SaaS services are in high demand. It’s just a fact.

Why building trust in B2B SaaS products is important?

Providing a B2B service means that organizations are trusting your product to create value for their users. Creating trust in B2B SaaS clients is important because it helps build a strong and lasting relationship. When clients trust the SaaS provider, they are more willing to use their services, which leads to increased customer loyalty, improved customer satisfaction, and better sales. Trust also makes the client more likely to refer other customers to the SaaS provider. It’s the number one component in creating a winning, stable, scalable B2B SaaS product. It also keeps clients happy and satisfied in the long run.

But how can a B2B SaaS company establish trust? Well, this is where things get a little more complicated. When we talk about trust, there are 3 main issues you must address:

1. Make sure your application is available at all times

Availability is a critical factor for any B2B SaaS application because it ensures that the application will be accessible to users when they need it. This is especially important for B2B applications. Just imagine the moment when your customer needs to use your app, and it’s not there for them. This is something you definitely want to avoid. 

When a business application is unavailable, it can cause delays and disruptions in operations, resulting in lost revenue and customer dissatisfaction. Availability also ensures users have the data they need to conduct business and prevents it from being lost or damaged. Availability is normally expressed in 9’s. For example, “5 nines uptime” indicates a system is fully operational 99.999% of the time, which effectively means it’s down less than 6 minutes per year, on average.

If your product provides real value, it means that it should be there when needed. Trust is built when your product is doing its job, trust is broken when your product doesn’t work when needed the most.

2. Security must be a top priority

Security is maybe the most important component in every B2B SaaS. A high standard of security ensures that customer data remains safe. Additionally, it helps protect against data breaches, malicious attacks, and unauthorized access. Security is also important when it comes to compliance with the industry’s regulations.

Read more: The Evolution of SaaS Architecture

Here are some best practices that can help keep you safe:

• Data encryption – Data at rest and in motion both need to be encrypted. You should also try not to store sensitive data in your databases unless it is really required.
• Password management – You need to enforce a solid password policy (make strong passwords mandatory, lock accounts faster after failed attempts) and try to go passwordless ASAP.
• Roles and permissions – More and more people are accessing your system every day. This can be remote workers, freelancers, third-parties, and more. Granular access is the name of the game.
• Third-party security – Every company has dozens of third-party solutions or apps they are using. Make sure you remove the ones you don’t need and monitor the ones that are being used.
• Penetration (Pen) Testing – While this is not an ongoing solution, the occasional Pen Test will help you understand your critical vulnerabilities and help you improve your security posture.

Security is important because trust is broken when accounts get breached. The stolen data can be used to make purchases or commit fraud. Additionally, data breaches can cost businesses millions of dollars in recovery costs, legal fees, and lost revenue. When building a trusted B2B SaaS service, security needs to be at the top of your mind.

Read more: Enterprise SaaS Architecture – The Why

3. Empower users to take control over your accounts

In B2B, users expect to have full control over all the information in their organizational accounts. Trust is built when a user can control their accounts on their own, trust is broken when a user needs to reach out to support for every simple thing. In-app freedom is becoming an important component of building trust in the B2B space. This means that the modern SaaS consumer expects to access a PLG-friendly application that is fully self-served – from signup, all the way to renewing subscriptions. Time is money!

Self-served features allow customers to control and manage a service or a product without the help of an employee or any customer service representative. They are typically provided through a website or an app, and they can range from the ability to pay bills online to booking a flight, ordering food from a restaurant, and much more. Self-served features save customers time and money, they are preventing friction, and allow them to complete tasks in their own time. By allowing your users self-service features, you promise them to have full control over their accounts – with zero need for human support.

A few more takeaways

Building a winning B2B product requires a high level of quality – this involves the aforementioned availability, security, and control pillars. When all three are combined, it’s easier to build trust. 

But it doesn’t end there, you will also need strong and stable core features that have been developed with the customer in mind. Think of your favorite SaaS application, whether it is B2B or B2C, why do you trust them? It’s probably because all ends are covered – the value proposition, smooth onboarding, self-served features, and great customer support to bring it all together.

By always putting yourself in your client’s shoes, you can understand how they feel about your product and what they can gain from it. A customer-first approach with a mature and robust application is the best practice in the B2B SaaS space, after which it’s all about expansion and growth. With Frontegg’s user management platform, you’ll be able to build trust between your B2B SaaS solution and your customers by addressing all three main components of trust – availability, security, and control. It’s as simple as that.