Managed services providers (MSP) in the data backup and disaster recovery (BDR) business should avoid the temptation to fulfill this common customer request: doing more work for the same price.

Clients First CTO Mark Chinsky, a BDR expert, spoke with MSPmentor briefly about this common customer request, and how MSPs providing BDR offerings for the first time should learn to navigate a fine line — at least in the beginning.

He said MSPs will need to learn to recognize if a BDR customer is asking for something larger than just BDR. When does it become another billable service? 

“That is the fine line we’re trying to navigate,” he said.

Chinsky admitted that his company has made that line fairly generous, mainly because it’s a newer company. He suggested, however, that his company will more than likely have to put together policies in the future to prevent leaving any additional revenue on the table.

“That’s the challenge of selling anything at a fixed cost, and somebody ends up consuming more than you projected as an average,” he said. “How do you manage that without offending your customer?”

Chinsky spoke with us a few weeks ago on what MSPs should expect going forward in the BDR market, and where should they focus their efforts.

Have you had these issues with BDR customers in the beginning? If so, how do you overcome these issues? If you use service level agreements (SLAs), what do you typically include in them?