A step-by-step guide to evaluating potential SaaS providers

Now more than ever, choosing the right Software as a Service (SaaS) platform is pivotal to your business success. Whether you’re a startup or a well-established corporation, the decision to opt for a SaaS solution demands a thorough evaluation process. The following best practices for evaluating a SaS platform can help ensure a seamless partnership for your organization that aligns with your business needs and goals.

Understanding Your Business Needs

Before diving headfirst into the sea of SaaS options, it’s important to start with a firm grasp of your organization’s unique requirements. Conduct a comprehensive internal assessment, identifying pain points and objectives that the SaaS solution should address. Whether it’s streamlining operations, enhancing customer experience, or improving collaboration, aligning these needs with the features offered by the platform is essential for a successful implementation.

If you aren’t sure where to begin, a great place to start is with your business goals for the upcoming year. Where are places you need to see more growth, operational improvement, or more standardization in data? Once you have an idea of what you’re lacking, you can start reviewing places to implement new software solutions that can address those missing links. Keep in mind, your initial pain points may lead to larger areas of focus. For example, if you think you just need a way to make a fillable PDF, ask yourself: “Why a fillable PDF?” If what you’re really after is a better way to capture your business data, then a digital forms platform may actually solve more than one issue within your business.

Evaluating SaaS Providers

Cloud-based solutions are on the rise, and with them, a growing number of options are available for you to find the perfect one that fits your needs. Whether you’re looking to move away from paper and fillable PDF documents to data that can go where you need it, or streamline your payroll processing in-house for faster paydays, there’s a SaaS solution for your team. To ensure success for everyone in your organization, however, there are some key features you’ll want to consider.

Security and Compliance

In many cases, your SaaS provider is going to be responsible for capturing, housing, or transmitting your data, and you need to know it’s a safe solution. This means ensuring you have ways to lock down user access, guaranteed encryption while your data is in transfer, and even logs within the platform that can reveal who was editing or accessing files and programs. Prioritize providers with robust security measures, and look for compliance certifications, like HIPAA-compliant digital forms, E-SIGN Act-compliant electronic signatures, and more. Even if you don’t need some of these security features, finding a solution that offers them lends additional credibility to their team.

Performance and Reliability

Look for solutions with high uptime statistics, scalable account types depending on the features you need, and a track record of feature updates that they’re transparent about. When it comes to using a new SaaS platform, the last thing you want is to have continual software issues in addition to a learning curve for your team. While no software solution can guarantee a 100% uptime report, you should look for the ones that are transparent when there are outages or concerns, as well as speedy resolution times. 

Of course, you’ll also need to consider the features they offer, and how often they’re working on their own product. A variety of account pricing points with varying features can lower your initial investment, while giving you room for growth as your business and needs expand. Additionally, if you need a mobile forms solution, but find a PDF editor boasting the same functionality, you’ll be sorely disappointed in the long run. Don’t hesitate to ask for a demo or feature walkthrough from your provider options, they can easily show you if they have the features you really need.

The biggest benefit of a Cloud-based solution is that you’ll always have access to the latest and greatest features, but if the company you choose has been stagnant for some time, you’ll quickly be behind. Look to the company’s blog, support documentation, or even their newsletters to see how often they release updates, bug fixes, and new features to the platform - and with the speed at which technology is advancing, anything more sporadic than a bi-weekly pace should be a red flag during your review.

User Experience and Support

Always look for platforms offering intuitive interfaces and excellent user experiences. If they offer both web and mobile access, they should be streamlined in their appearance and offer consistent navigation throughout, as well as frequent syncing to ensure data is easily translated between the two.

Software support and experience teams are what set an average SaaS provider apart from the top-tier solutions. Make sure that the support team is as accessible as the sales team, and look for detailed support documentation before you make a final decision. You can also check peer and industry review sites to see how well-ranked the support team is, and get an understanding from others in your field how responsive they are to requests, questions, and troubleshooting.

Cost and Contract Consideration

Scrutinize pricing structures, ensuring transparency and understanding of any potential hidden fees. For things like mobile apps, there may be individual device costs associated with them, but the best-in-class providers will offer those included in the cost of your account. You will also need to confirm that all the features and functionality you need are included in the pricing package you’re interested in, as most SaaS providers offer enhanced features to higher-tier subscriptions.

SaaS platforms offer the benefit of a monthly or annual subscription that comes with consistent feature updates, but make sure you investigate these costs thoroughly. Most reputable platforms don’t require a contract or annual commitment, however, some will offer discounted annual pricing that can ease the initial financial investment of your organization.

Conducting Due Diligence

Don’t rely solely on marketing claims, as appealing as they often are. Request a demo or trial to experience the platform firsthand, and invite other key stakeholders to try out your top picks. If everyone is able to get the functionality they need, especially across multiple departments within your organization, that’s a good sign you’ve found a winning platform. You can also seek out feedback from existing customers, or partners of your own, to gain insights into their experiences.

When it comes to SaaS platforms, aim for the ones that excel in the specific places they work best, but openly integrate with other software solutions your company may already have in place. Even looking to your existing trusted solutions, such as your ERP or CRM platform, can provide you with options for easily integrated technologies.

Risk Mitigation and Contingency Planning

Always have an exit strategy in place. Ensure clarity on data portability and ownership rights, allowing for smooth transitions in case you do need to switch providers down the road. Develop contingency plans to handle service disruptions that can safeguard your operations from potential downtime.

Any business can fail, pivot, or drop functionality at any time, and SaaS platforms are no exception. This is where it behooves you to review your choices thoroughly, looking at how long the provider in question has been in business, how wide their customer base is, and what their investment fundraising history looks like. If there are any hardships in the past of the company, look at how they handled it. Were there appropriate adjustments in leadership and management? Has the company continued to experience growth since then? The actions that a company takes to fix and eliminate problems in the past can be a positive indicator of how poised they are for future growth.

Ongoing Evaluation and Monitoring

Just as every SaaS platform will continue to expand and improve their feature sets, your organization should be prepared to continue evaluating whether or not that platform best meets your needs. Regularly assess the performance of your chosen SaaS provider, and encourage feedback mechanisms within your organization to facilitate continuous improvements. Stay flexible, allowing for adjustments and upgrades as your business evolves.

Additionally, understanding how your SaaS provider handles feature requests and feedback can be a great indicator of which platform to choose. If there are designated areas for existing customers to submit feature requests, or even webinars and content published on their blog or public social profiles highlighting upcoming features, this is a good sign. You can easily see how likely it is that features you want or desire will be added to the platform, or if the provider is open to outside feedback.

Selecting the right SaaS provider demands careful consideration and diligent evaluation. It’s not merely a transaction, but a partnership critical to your business’s success. By following these best practices, you can navigate the myriad of options available and find a reliable partner that meets your needs and contributes to your organization’s long-term growth.

About GoFormz

GoFormz is proud to be a digital forms solution for every industry. We believe that everyone should be able to fill out their forms online, delivering products and services that redefine how people and businesses collect and process data. No matter how entrenched in paper forms you may feel, GoFormz is the only digital forms provider that can create an exact digital replica of your existing paper forms, and ease your transition to a more sustainable way of doing business. Complete with an open API and multiple native integrations, GoFormz gives you the ability to get your form data exactly where you need it.