The Cloud Challenge! RightNow Changes The SaaS CRM Game with New Prices & An Industry Contest
Today, RightNow Technologies made a big move in encouraging CRM users to take up cloud platforms with the RightNow Cloud Services Agreement (CSA)—a client-focused approach to solution licensing. The overarching goal is to eradicate the hidden costs, intense maintenance bills, and shelfware often involved in current SaaS contract, filling in gaps to make contract negotiation simpler. In addition, RightNow is implementing a “Cloud Challenge”—their call to other vendors to “engage with clients like true cloud vendors, not on-premise vendors in cloud clothing,” says CEP Greg Gianforte.
The specifics of the RightNow CSA promise quicker implementations and innovations, and more customizable programs that allow users to pay based on usage and the number of users rather than choosing from a few pre-packaged plans. The present terms state that new RightNow users will be offered the CSA, and current customers will receive the offer when their present contracts are up for renewal; those new customers signing contracts under the CSA will be able to determine their renewal charges in the first contract. New users can also try RightNow CX, their flagship CRM product, for a 90-day trial with unlimited capacity.
And the RightNow CSA aims to bring tangible savings to customers. Allowing users to purchase only what they need are RightNow’s “seat months.” Seat months can be adjusted each year, are intended to do away with shelfware, and the concept will be especially helpful to users with seasonal businesses. Also pleasing to potential customers: RightNow pledges to return portions of a user’s subscription fees if the platform fails to meet service-level agreements (SLAs). As RightNow is promising cash back for SLA failures, they’ve fortified their SLAs, and therefore strengthened their product.
It’ll be interesting to see how other cloud vendors respond to RightNow’s developments. While announcing RightNow’s new cloud pricing model and the Cloud Challenge, Gianforte claimed that 30% of Salesforce.com CRM seats are shelfware. Things can sometimes get dicey when aggressively challenging your competitors like this, but it seems all in the spirit of better business, and we’re curious to see how it shapes SaaS CRM products.
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