CompTIA: MSPs Must Educate Customers On Managed Services Benefits
Educating customers on managed services should be at the top of an MSP’s list of priorities for 2014, a CompTIA study revealed.
According to CompTIA’s “Third Annual Trends in Managed Services” study, customers leveraging managed services are fairly happy with the services they’re receiving, as well as the prices they’re paying. So what’s the problem?
There’s money being left on the table. Potential managed services customers are out there, but they’re unsure of how an MSP can satify their IT needs.
Many end user organizations have been using managed services for years, but they rarely turnover their entire IT portfolio to an MSP, CompTIA Industry Analysis Director Carolyn April told MSPmentor.
“Switching to managed services also requires a critical vetting process to make sure that the best MSP for the organization is hired and many steps to transitions apps, services and tasks that were once handled internally and hand them off to an outside provider,” she said.
To sway these customers, “the channel and MSP communities have to do a better job of communicating that positive experience to a broader audience of customers,” she said.
To build greater customer awareness, April suggests MSPs do followings:
- Listen to customers
- Understand how customers are using technology to do business
- Grasp how technology should be used in specific industry verticals
- Promote industry-specific expertise.
“The positive experiences of existing managed services customers should provide solid proof points that MSPs can use to convince other customers to consider managed services,” April said.
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