MSP service quality delivery is a key factor differentiating one supplier from another in the current and future application economy. An MSP is an IT managed service provider, serving customers on either a proactive or subscription basis.
Regardless of the size of your customers’ businesses, they are becoming increasingly dependent on applications for growth and expansion.
What is the quality of your own customer conversations around the topic of your proposed MSP service quality delivery?
It may be a larger issue with your customers than you assume.
The Application Economy refers to the wide range of economic activity surrounding mobile technology applications.
In a recent White Paper, the MSP Mentor lists three critical-to-success factors for an MSP’s success in the application economy:
- The ability to differentiate by offering more specialised, higher value and application-centric services
- The capability to execute and deliver value quickly so customers can capitalise on emerging opportunities
- The consistent delivery of the quality of service that customers demand
While service quality delivery is listed third, don’t pigeon-hole it as a post-delivery thought. Your company’s position on service quality delivery may mean the difference between winning, losing or retaining your customer.
Framing your solutions on MSP service quality delivery is a direct way of addressing customer expectations. Your customers anticipate that stuff is going to go wrong in spite of your assurances. They expect they will endure cyberattacks and hacks.
The strength of your positioning regarding MSP service quality delivery is an elephant in the room. How about addressing it head-on and up-front?
Your buyers are skeptical about your solutions, no matter how fool-proof you position them. Your buyers may not have the technical know-how to understand the safeguards your platforms and systems have in place.
Your buyers are not simply investing in another solution. They are engaging you as an investment in the future of their company.
The unasked question in the minds of buyers and key decision makers becomes how quickly your company is on top of technology advances, particularly in the area of security. Are you one step ahead? Are you proactive and anticipatory?
If you are using yesterday’s thinking to position your MSP service quality delivery, you can find yourself behind the 8-ball in the next round of vendor selection.
After all, when security is threatened, your customers have no opportunity to differentiate themselves or execute and deliver value to their own customer base.
Perhaps it’s time to focus on where MSP service quality delivery plays into your business development and sales initiatives. This pivot brings service quality delivery, and overall quality, to the forefront of your customer dialogues.
MSPs need to help customers deliver and manage their most valuable assets: the applications that their business increasingly depends on.
When you lead with MSP service quality delivery, you engage the entire company, not just IT or Purchasing.
When you position MSP service quality delivery as an inherent part of your customer’s growth and revenue stream, you become part of their team. Otherwise you are just another budgetary line item and capital expenditure.
How does your company currently position service quality delivery?
This post was brought to you by IBM for MSPs and opinions are my own. To read more on this topic, visit IBM’s PivotPoint. Dedicated to providing valuable insight from industry thought leaders, PivotPoint offers expertise to help you develop, differentiate and scale your business.
Babette N. Ten Haken, President of Sales Aerobics for Engineers®, LLC, is a business coach and management consultant. Her Workshops create Playbooks for startups and small to mid-size companies who want to grow, expand and sustain their businesses, but wrestle with unpredictable revenue streams. Her Playbook on leadership, business development and collaboration strategies, including tools, Do YOU Mean Business? is available on Amazon.com.
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