A naukri.com initiative
Saastr
2M
281
Dear SaaStr: Our Biggest Potential Customers Are All Asking for Custom Features. When Do We Say Yes?
- Balancing the need to close big deals with the risk of overextending the team on custom work is a classic enterprise SaaS challenge.
- Agree to do custom work only if it can be reused and benefit other customers in the future, not just the current one.
- Set clear guardrails for evaluating custom requests to ensure they align with the roadmap and benefit multiple users.
- Consider charging for custom features or integrations as a premium service to offset costs and show customer commitment.
- Prioritize configurability over customization to make the product more scalable and reduce technical debt.
- Outsource custom work to trusted partners if resource-constrained to avoid overloading the internal team.
- Create a playbook for handling custom requests to define criteria, pricing guidelines, approval processes, and ensure consistency.
- Use custom work as a learning opportunity to identify product gaps and stay ahead of customer needs.
- Be willing to say no to extreme custom requirements to protect the team and product integrity in the long term.
- Communicate the value of the core offering to enterprise customers to show how it meets their needs without customization.
Read Full Article
16 Likes
For uninterrupted reading, download the app