With the MSP market growing, what sets the most successful resellers apart from the rest are the diverse range of products and solutions they offer their customers. With a projected Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 11.1%, there has never been a better time to grow and develop the products and services your MSP offers in order to stand out from the competition and attract more customers.
Going beyond your current product portfolio allows you to create many more opportunities for your business as you allow for a more varied customer base. More and more MSPs are finding new ways to increase revenue and this method is a tried and tested one for helping you scale sustainably.
You can add value for your customers whilst also adding value to your business, without affecting your internal resources too much. The key is choosing the right partner. Read on to discover a myriad of ways to help you achieve your MSP business goals.
Identify
Talk with your customers about what products and services would help them achieve their business goals? If you feel they would benefit from cloud computing, let them know and talk them through how the features associated with it would work for them. Improving your customer’s technology will be a huge contributor to their growth and success.
Through this identification process you as an MSP, can address issues before they escalate and negatively impact your customer. For example, would your customer benefit from a more effective data protection and backup solutions? If this is the case and your customers work in an industry that heavily relies on data and need to ensure it is highly protected, solutions such as Zerto will be ideal.
Be the partner that can help your customer protect what matters to them. Your customers trust you and trust your judgement so you have a fantastic opportunity to explore what additional products you can add to your portfolio. Providing excellent customer service with proactive monitoring and assessing is one of the best ways to retain customers and increase their brand loyalty.
HubSpot found that 93% of customers are more likely to make repeat purchases with companies who offer excellent customer service. This then in turn benefits your business as increasing your customer retention by 5% can increase profits by between 25% and 95%.
Research
A key factor to consider when choosing an MSP partner to help you maximise your product offering is whether the solution they offer will easily integrate with your current systems, programs, and software. Choosing solutions and partners that complement your current infrastructure will ensure a smooth process for you, your current and future customers.
Through working with your customers, you can identify what products outside of your current product offering would benefit them and similar customers in the future. The next step is finding the best vendor. With so many vendors out there all wanting to work with you, it is important to ensure you find the vendor that is the right fit for you and your customers.
If you are implementing a product that is outside of your team’s skillset then request to see the appropriate accreditation and qualifications that demonstrate they can do the job. Ask yourself, can you see your partnership as a long term? Do they have the potential to provide other products or solutions you and your MSP customers would benefit from in the future?
Keeping your customer’s data should be high on the list of priorities for the IT vendor you choose, ensure this by choosing a vendor that is ISO:27001 accredited. After identifying what your customers would need, you should assess the goals of your business.
If you would like to offer cloud-based services but do not have expertise in-house to support this to an expert level, as well as around the clock with 24/7 support, find a partner that will be able to do this to minimise the impact on your team. The partner you choose should be able to deliver you the perfect opportunity to build on your existing portfolio effortlessly to accommodate the evolving needs of your current customers whilst equipping you for your future ones.
Implement
Is everything working how it should be? Have you done the appropriate testing? If you are working with a vendor, get in touch with them and ask them to assist with the testing. It’s important to get the most out of your new products and solutions.
One of the many benefits of becoming a partner is that you will have a team of experts there to carry out the installation and configuration. With partner programs such as Synextra‘s, your IT team can rely on your chosen vendor to implement new products and service efficiently, ensuring there are not any gaps or concerns.
A big part of this will be checking security to evaluate any concerns there may be and check the system for weaknesses. You will now be reaping the benefits of you carrying out thorough research when choosing an IT supplier, as the implementation process should be seamless with minimal disruption.
Assess
Go back to step one where you identified the needs of your customers, have they now been met? It’s important to understand if your customers, and your business, are benefiting from the service and product your partner is providing. Asking your internal team for feedback is important also, highlighting any area that could be improved upon or alternatively any gaps where customers could benefit from additional products and services.
Once you are happy with the service you and your customer are receiving, now might be the time to leverage the relationship with your vendor and explore some of the marketing and sales support they provide. At Synextra, we’re more than an MSP.
We offer technical and marketing benefits to our partners to help them promote the cloud hosted solutions that are now included in their portfolio. This includes sales training from our very own sales team and individually designed partner branded marketing collateral that can be used to give existing and potential customers information.
If you would like to know more about becoming a Channel Partner with Synextra, get in touch.
