REPORT YOUR WAY TO A BETTER CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP

Transcription

1 REPORT YOUR WAY TO A BETTER CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP

2 IT S ALL ABOUT RELATIONSHIPS Running a successful managed services business is all about managing relationships. You need to constantly ensure that you are meeting your customers needs or they will take their IT business elsewhere. The good news is that the benefits of a good customer relationship far outweigh any work that you need to put in. Some of the benefits of a healthy customer relationship are: High retention rates Higher average revenue per customer since you will spend less time haggling on service contracts and they are more likely to bring you additional business A happy customer is more likely to forgive when you are slow to resolve an issue

3 RELATIONSHIPS ARE ABOUT TRUST Trust is the glue of life. It s the most essential ingredient in effective communication. It s the foundational principle that holds all relationships. - Steven Covey 1 People do not respond to IT jargon or IT problems unrelated to their business Showing continuous value to your customers over time is the cornerstone of trust based relationship A relationship founded on trust is a powerful way for an MSP to protect critical business relationships from competitors 1 Stephen Covey. BrainyQuote.com, Xplore Inc, accessed February 19, 2015.

4 GOOD COMMUNICATION IS KEY TO A HEALTHY RELATIONSHIP Our inbox, phones and days are too cluttered with information. If you want to cut through the clutter and reach your customer you cannot just present them more noise. Regular network health checks provide customers with a regular review of key activities and insights such as: The following back-ups were completed These tickets were closed Here are the patches that were applied Providing information like this to customers shows your value and engages the customer in discussions about their future IT needs which leads to ongoing, repeat business.

5 3 WAYS TO REPORT YOUR WAY TO BETTER BUSINESS RELATIONSHIPS Break the ice I m looking after your needs Deliver on your promises Communicate the relevant information to develop a closer relationship and rapport with your customers.

6 ICEBREAKER REPORT For new customers you need a way to break the ice and start the conversation flowing. Pushing services and price lists is not going to get you far. Business owners need to trust you at some level before they are willing to share their information and their hard earned dollars. Providing a free network assessment report will give them some great value and start the conversation. From here you will know where the problems are and be able to show how you can add value to the relationship.

7 I M LOOKING AFTER YOUR NEEDS REPORT Winning a customer and keeping a customer are two very different activities. You need to remind customers on a regular basis that you still have their best interests at heart and their investment in this relationship is still a good idea. Providing a regular executive summary report and preferably an in person visit will demonstrate your commitment to their business and show the value you are bringing.

8 DELIVER ON YOUR PROMISES You need to make sure that you are delivering the service you promised to the best of your ability. Sometimes you can get caught up in the information overload and need a clean report to make sure you are not missing the forest for the trees. AV, Patch and Backup reports will help you to make sure you haven t missed any critical security coverage and that data is safely stored away.

9 CONCLUSION SHOW, DON T TELL The most successful Managed Service Providers do a great job of showing their customers what they are doing for them. Professional, standardized reports are a key success factor for any MSP. Reports with a visual, dashboard style graphic quantify the value delivered to a customer. Business owners see the value in seconds and value is the key to building trust. If you are interested in learning more about the value of reporting, visit

10 ABOUT SOLARWINDS N-ABLE SolarWinds N-able is the global leading provider of complete IT management, Automation, and MSP business transformation solutions. SolarWinds N-able s award-winning N-central is the industry s #1 RMM and MSP Service Automation Platform. SolarWinds N-able has a proven track record of helping MSPs standardize and automate the setup and delivery of IT services in order to achieve true scalability. N-central is backed by the most comprehensive business enablement support services available today and the industry s only Freemium licensing model. Thousands of MSPs use SolarWinds N-able solutions to deliver scalable, flexible, profitable managed services to over 100,000 SMBs worldwide. With offices in North America, the Netherlands and Australia, N-able is 100% channel-friendly and maintains strategic partnerships with Microsoft, Intel, IBM, CA, and Cisco among others N-able Technologies, Inc. All rights reserved. N-able Technologies, Inc. s trademarks, service marks, logos and copyrights are the exclusive property of N-able Technologies, Inc. and its affiliates. All other trademarks or works mentioned herein are used for identification purposes only and may be or are intellectual property of their respective companies. N-able Technologies and SolarWinds Worldwide, LLC are not affiliated with any of the respective companies.