Did you know there are more than 30,000 global SaaS companies on the market? Or that the market size for these companies is projected to reach $700 billion by 2030? How about that companies that expand internationally see an average revenue growth of 13%?
That’s a lot of big numbers to throw out — so what does it all mean? Well, if you’re a SaaS company that only operates domestically, it means you might be in the prime position for massive revenue growth. But how do you do it?
When it comes to international expansion, there's no one-size-fits-all playbook. The challenges associated with it vary from timezone issues to cultural differences and everything in between. But what do all of these challenges have in common? Customer support.
Whether you’ve already experienced some of these challenges and are looking for solutions, or you’re being proactive and reading up before you embark on your expansion journey (Good for YOU!), your support team should be top of mind in your expansion plans.
To help you easily navigate your international growth journey, we’ve compiled a list of the most common challenges companies face while expanding globally and how to set your support team up for success. Let’s dive in.
International expansion starts with understanding the customer’s needs, which goes hand-in-hand with customer support. To successfully launch in a new region, you’ll need to navigate the minefield of international operations and all of the challenges that come with it. At ServiceRocket, we’ve got your back with solutions to key global growth challenges.
As your customer base grows, you need to scale your support infrastructure to meet increased demand. This may involve investing in new tools and technologies that enable remote access, as well as hiring additional support staff. Plus, you will need to measure and improve support performance across multiple regions. You need to have a way to track key metrics, such as first response time and customer satisfaction, and identify areas where improvement is required.
A cloud-based support platform can provide 24/7 support to customers in different time zones. It can also help you scale your support infrastructure as your customer base grows and monitor agent performance, regardless of location.
For example, with the help of ServiceRocket, you can implement a service like Atlassian ITSM and JSM, which brings together IT, Dev, Ops and business teams to streamline decision-making and issue resolution without added cost or complexity.
ServiceRocket can help you set up a cloud-based support platform that offers:
Cultural differences can impact customer interactions in several ways, from communication styles to expectations about response times. It's important to be aware of these differences and to train your support team accordingly.
To help reduce friction with customers in a new market, you’ll need to train your support team on the cultural differences of your operating markets. This training should cover communication styles, etiquette and religious beliefs (amongst others). Think of this as an investment in ensuring your international growth is booming. Once training is complete, your team will be better equipped to understand and communicate with customers from different cultures.
Or, you can hire a third-party support company like ServiceRocket. ServiceRocket’s onboarding process enables world-class customer support as we train our support engineers to provide Best-in-class Customer Support, which covers proven processes on:
Providing 24/7 support to customers in different time zones can be difficult and expensive. You may need to hire multiple shifts of support representatives or outsource tech support to a third-party provider. Time zone differences can also be challenging because finding regular time for the entire team to work together, bond and learn from one another is not easy without someone sacrificing personal time or, even worse, sleep.
Set up a local entity in the new region. Your new customers are more likely to trust customer support representatives who are native to their region because they feel that they are better at understanding their needs and can provide the best possible service.
This will also help solve the challenge of time zone coverage. For example, if a U.S.-based company strategically selected its new office location in Eastern Europe, it could stagger its support resources enough to offer 24-hour support.
But that still leaves the challenge of collaborating and managing your new staff. To resolve this, you can partner with ServiceRocket to get:
Finding and hiring qualified support representatives in different countries can be challenging. Once you've hired your team, you need to provide them with the training they need to succeed.
You can outsource support if you need more resources to build and manage a global support team in-house. Instead of spending time recruiting, hiring, training and managing support engineers, if you outsource customer IT support, you can expect to scale faster while also surpassing expectations. This will also help free up your team’s time to focus on strategic initiatives like launching new support channels or knowledge bases while efficiently managing costs.
To help, you can partner with a third-party customer support provider like ServiceRocket. We have 20+ years of support experience with an existing team infrastructure, regional staff that can relate to your customers and a history of support with global SaaS organizations.
You need to ensure that your support team complies with all applicable market regulations. You need to take steps to protect the data privacy and security of your customer's data, regardless of where they are located. This includes complying with all applicable data protection laws and regulations. This can be a complex and time-consuming task, especially if you don't have that expertise in-house.
Every region comes with its own set of unique compliance requirements. Though some may be similar to the ones you’ve worked with locally, others might surprise you. And if you don’t know what they are, it can cost you.
If you currently operate in North America, you know that specific data privacy policies must be followed to operate legally. But what about other countries or regions? For example, to operate in Europe, you must adhere to GDRP standards; not doing so can result in huge fines if not applied properly.
To prevent entering a market without the right policies, you can partner with an outsourcing provider, like ServiceRocket, to ensure compliance. ServiceRocket already operates internationally and has partnered with multiple organizations in their global expansion efforts. We make it our mission to help you enter new regions securely by ensuring that our team complies with your corporate-level IT SOC requirements and guides you on staying compliant with future international regulation updates.
All SaaS companies should consider investing in effective and scalable technical support. This is something that ServiceRocket is uniquely able to provide because ServiceRocket is more than just tech support — we are tech-enabled support. We align human talent, processes and tech resources to build smoother workflows that minimize friction.
With ServiceRocket, your customers get the best experience every time. With 20+ years of tech-enabled SaaS support experience, we’ve helped customers like Atlassian, Docker and Preset expand their support offerings globally, and we’re ready to enable your company’s fast international growth, too. #WeGotYourBack
To learn more about how ServiceRocket can help you deliver support that enables fast growth, schedule a call! Not ready for a call yet? No worries! You can download the Docker & Preset case studies to see how we enabled their global growth.
