Why Focusing On the Customer Experience Pays Off for MSPs

Adonay Cervantes

Satisfied customers equal returning customers. Business customers, like regular consumers, want to use technology with ease. They want the simplicity of a one-stop shop of digital services, bundled with the necessary managed services, and they want the flexibility to pay as they go. As managed service providers (MSPs), you can help enable businesses to accelerate growth and increase revenue.

Business customers turn to you as experts who will work side by side as an extension of their company. Customers want solutions — a single IT partner to simplify their business needs.

The managed services market is expected to reach more than $730 billion by 2030. As the IT/MSP market grows, improving the customer experience should be a driving force in the managed services space. However, research shows that only 38% of MSPs (PDF) surveyed consider customer satisfaction a key performance indicator (KPI), with most focusing on return on investment (ROI).

Making customers’ lives easier and understanding their needs can lead to a better customer experience, and result in customer retention and the increase of the average revenue per user (ARPU).

Automate XaaS

With the growing interest in advanced services such as artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things and cybersecurity, MSPs are quickly adapting themselves to offer and manage various digital-based solutions. In the age of anything-as-a-service (XaaS), you should be leaning into automating XaaS procurement to expand service offerings and speed delivery of XaaS bundles. However, more offerings require the right technical infrastructure.

A procurement platform for XaaS delivery automation helps increase the efficiency of operations. You can benefit from a single automation platform to manage vendors and partners, and deliver a wide range of bundled offerings. This allows a “one-click” shopping experience and creates huge cross-selling and bundling opportunities. As an MSP, you can quickly grow your catalog and start transactions immediately, enabling organizations to reach new customers.

Whether it’s software-as-a-service (SaaS), security-as-a-service (SECaaS) or storage-as-a-service (STaaS), companies are striving to diversify their revenue streams with a digital-first mindset.

Organizations that previously only sold hardware, such as Xerox, have evolved to offer services on top of their original equipment. Now, Xerox is building on its leadership in the managed print services (MPS) market to deliver workplace solutions. Roughly 77% of the company’s revenue today is after-sale, recurring revenue.

If Cisco, for example, is offering its firewall for a company’s data center, it’s outsourcing from a third-party tech vendor. You, as the MSP, broker these relationships, providing access to infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS). This means enabling access to Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform (GCP). These are the resources wanted by small-to-medium businesses and large corporations alike, and on a subscription basis.

To make all this work efficiently, MSPs are embracing automation. Globally, 90% of MSPs worldwide say automation is key to optimizing processes. Being able to automate the provisioning and fulfillment of physical and digital goods from third-party vendors and their own services, is crucial to succeeding in the as-a-service economy.

With XaaS, companies can provide subscription-based models with products and services on demand, allowing businesses to have a recurring revenue stream.

How to Grow in the Digital Marketplace

More companies are building a digital ecosystem of marketplaces as they strive to stay nimble in this uncertain market and reach new audiences. What sets high-performing MSPs apart is their ability to …