What did an Industrial Designer Teach the World of Billing?
Henry Dreyfuss changed the world of design for good! But along the way what did he teach the world of SaaS today?
Henry Dreyfuss was not just an industrial designer; he was a believer in designing products with people in mind, rather than creating technology that people would have to adapt to. With a plethora of accolades, including redesigning Broadway sets to increase audience engagement, Dreyfuss was famous for his people-centric approach.
Once in the 1920s, he was called upon to solve a problem plaguing the newly built RKO theatre in Queens, NY. Despite its modern amenities and glamorous design, it struggled to attract an audience—passersby didn’t even cast a glance in its direction!!
To uncover the root of the problem, Dreyfuss collaborated with the theatre administration and staff. They experimented with lowering ticket prices and offering free popcorn but to no avail. They tried everything but the townspeople would always prefer the rundown theatre downtown. What was more confusing? Meticulously designed and decorated, the theatre had all the modern amenities known in the day, royal carpets, and tapestries, this place was magic! But what went wrong?
Dreyfuss engaged with the community to understand why they preferred the older, run-down theatre. The revelation was simple: the workers of the town, after a long day, had muddy shoes and didn’t want to dirty the new theatre’s pristine red carpets. They felt out of place!
Upon this discovery, Dreyfuss acted swiftly to replace the plush carpets, and soon, the crowd started pouring in.
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A Lesson in Pricing
This story illustrates a prevalent issue in the SaaS world—setting prices and creating packages without considering the real needs and preferences of the end-users. Often, we adhere to old pricing models and force-fit new features into existing tiers without experimentation or user feedback, limiting growth and revenue generation opportunities.
This year, inflation and shifts in the economy are pushing SaaS companies to change their prices. These changes are causing layoffs across the tech industry.
At the same time, companies are cutting budgets, making B2B SaaS businesses search for more affordable solutions to fit their now smaller teams. Therefore, the way a business packages and prices its products will be a deal breaker in signing the next deal!
Understanding customer needs and showing value is paramount. It’s crucial to keep product offerings fresh and exciting to catch and maintain customer interest.
What does a Billing Platform have to offer you?
Adapting swiftly to the evolving needs in today's SaaS landscape is critical. Imagine making packaging changes in the backend without your billing tool supporting it. It would be chaotic and instead of generating revenue, it would hamper it.
A flexible billing system is crucial—it should cater seamlessly to all business modifications and enhancements. This is why we built Togai, to help you determine the pricing that is right for your business.
Put your reading glasses on!
1. Three Ways To Revitalize Your SaaS Business With Your Billing Tool: This piece from Forbes contains tips and real-world examples that will inspire you to give your billing a fresh air of profitability.
This Month’s Must-Hear Before Everyone Else Does!
1. Why Punish Your Most Powerful Users?: Our customer Appsmith takes you on their journey of choosing usage-based pricing, benefits and how they’re reaping the benefits! Listen before someone else does!
What’s brewing with the product?
🔀 Invoice Grouping: We heard your request and we’ve done it. With invoice grouping you can consolidate invoices across multiple accounts for a single customer now! Also, you can have a single billing Email address for all the accounts! Bid bye to all the confusion and multiple mails you need to communicate with!
📜Track revenue at an event level: Get granular data into your billing metrics and see how much each event fetches you $$ in revenue. This helps you audit better and also provides you with a clear view into your overall billing metrics helping you make changes along the way!
🚀License Proration: Now you can ensure all refunds are fed back as credits. Let’s say your customer buys licenses for $20 but downgrades midway to $15, you can now grant those $5 as prorated currency credits back into their account.