Many users don’t trust your B2B SaaS product at first. Here’s how to build trust through better onboarding, training, and UX.

Banks build on the trust of their customers.

Marriages build on the mutual trust of the spouses.

Every webshop has a “trusted” seal at the bottom of the page, ensuring shoppers that all communication is encrypted.

But what about globally active B2B SaaS businesses? How do they build trust? From my experience as the Founder & CEO of Yonder, I often hear that users “don’t trust the system.” Let us look at some root causes behind that statement.

The Software

Unfortunately, all software has bugs, and all software has vulnerabilities. Therefore, SaaS companies need to fix and improve things constantly.

Look at bugs and vulnerabilities from the customer side. Depending on the IT literacy of a person, what the person does with your software, and the person’s attitude to perfection, a bug might be perceived as either non-existent or a major problem. And if users see bugs as major problems, this directly impacts the trust of the users in your system.

Not all software problems are bugs or vulnerabilities. The more complex a product is, the more there is that users can do wrong. From my experience with providing a complex software product, there are two elements to building trust with a complex product.

First, talk to your customers and help them navigate the software product instead of communicating through support tickets. Talking to each other is also a great source for product improvement — when users tell you what they actually do with your product, you might discover that their actions differ from your original intent.

Second, integrate detailed logging functionality into your product. Transparently showing users who did what and at what time helps them understand the product, bolstering trust.

The Onboarding

For all software products, the onboarding process is critical. If you provide a simple B2C app through Apple’s app store, the onboarding is straightforward. If you provide a complex B2B or even enterprise SaaS product, the onboarding often takes the form of a mid-sized project. Trust is built when you can assure prospects and customers that you have the experience, the right team, and the documentation to guide them through the onboarding project — on time, on quality, on budget.

The Training

Apple does a wonderful job at building intuitive products that the entire world uses largely without training. However, never forget that Apple has more UX design resources than any other company on the planet. Furthermore, many enterprise-level software products are more complex than an iPhone app — at least for power users.

Therefore, strive for Apple-style usability for end-users, even if you are serving the enterprise sector. At the same time, invest ample time and resources into training materials for your power users.

Conclusions

Building a software product that users like and trust is never a simple task. It takes lots of effort, time, and discussions with users to get from MVP to a fully-fledged product.

Always remember that software can be standardized and scaled across the world, but that onboarding and training often have a human touch — and in this way, they can vary in different parts of the world.

To all my fellow B2B SaaS entrepreneurs out there — there is lots to do, let’s get back to work!