Pioneer in the telecommunications industry with over 25 years of experience. Jonathan Rosenberg is the CTO and Head of AI at Five9.
I work as CTO and head of AI at Five9. We serve some of the largest enterprises in the world, and over the past few years, we’ve seen an evolution in the types of capabilities these customers are asking of us—many of which apply to any B2B software-as-a-service (SaaS) offering, not just contact-center-as-a-service (CCaaS) solutions. So, if you’re a buyer within an enterprise looking to purchase a B2B SaaS platform, you should be asking for these capabilities too.
Nine Things To Ask For From Your SaaS Vendor
1. B2C Ease Of Use—Even For Configuration
Historically, B2B SaaS platforms have lagged behind their B2C counterparts in ease of use. One of the worst culprits has been the experience of setup, configuration and implementation. In the past, enterprises weren’t pushing for improvements in this area. Those days are gone now. You should ask for ease of use with a focus on helping reduce implementation time and thus your costs. Ask for the application of generative AI to help craft configurations even more quickly.
2. Next-Level Security
Data security and privacy are more critical and complex than ever. Regulations like GDPR have heightened awareness around where and how data is collected, stored and processed, especially when it comes to cloud products and services. As an enterprise buyer, you should demand transparent data management, including full visibility into where data resides and control over how it’s used. Of particular importance is whether your data is being used to train AI models.
3. Hyper-Personalization
Personalization isn’t a new ask, but end users are increasingly demanding it, and with generative AI, vendors can deliver it. Your SaaS solution should make your users feel “known” and understood.
4. Integration With Other SaaS Applications
The number of SaaS tools deployed within an enterprise continues to grow with no grand unification on the horizon, so data often remains siloed across multiple systems and platforms. You should insist that your vendors integrate with at least your most vital SaaS tools—without the need for expensive IT projects. Examples include integration with identity providers for SSO, SCIM or similar integrations for provisioning, SIEM integration for security, CRM integrations for customer data and data warehouse integrations for reporting.
5. Real-Time Data Analytics And Actionable Insights
In today’s AI world, expectations around analytics and insight are higher than ever. You should demand the ability to slice and dice all relevant data, and it needs to be fast, easy to do and in real time. Make sure you can drill down on insights, get predictions of trends that impact your business and see measurements of business outcomes.
6. Rapid Innovation With Greater Control
Enterprises want new capabilities delivered quickly, but they also want control over how and when new features are introduced. As a result, you should ask for early access so you can test and pilot new functionality and get advanced notice of changes so you can prepare employees. Additionally, if your business has critical times of the year—such as the holiday season if you’re a retailer—ask for functionality freezes during those times.
7. Responsive, Hands-On Support
It almost goes without saying that you should insist on high-touch, 24/7 support. Beyond that, you should look for real-time outage notifications and detailed status reports—where the outages are and whether they impact the products and services you purchased from them. Make sure you gain access to customer success teams to ensure your business objectives are met, from onboarding through successful deployment.
8. In-Country Data Processing
If you’re in a regulated industry like financial services or healthcare, in-country data processing is crucial. Ask your SaaS vendor for transparency into where data is processed and stored and whether they can guarantee it happens within the countries you need it to stay in.
9. Ethical AI And Transparency
Finally, as we push the boundaries of AI, you need to be sure your vendors are following responsible and ethical AI practices. Ask for the ability to opt out of having your data used to train AI models, and insist that your vendor always opts out of their supply chain of vendors. If they’re using AI to make decisions that affect people’s lives, make sure the software allows affected people to see and contest those decisions.
Conclusion
The evolution of AI and SaaS over the last 10 years has changed the set of capabilities enterprises should demand from their vendors. Be sure to consider these nine core requirements when evaluating a vendor for your business needs.
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