Proactive Retention to Avoid Customer Churn
The managed services market is expected to grow to $257.84 billion by 2022, with the cloud managed services market projected to reach $88.85 billion by 2026. In 2020, the revenue ratio between products and services reported by the largest tech companies reversed, with services now bringing in 60% of revenue and leaving the managed services industry primed for growth.
With such opportunity comes intense competition—not just for acquiring new customers but for enticing existing customers away from their current MSPs.
So, how loyal are your customers? It’s easy to assume no news is good news, but your customers might also be silent because they’re searching for another provider. As businesses begin to open back up and reconsider their IT needs and budgets, you could find your customers poached by the hungry competition.
To avoid falling into this trap, take a proactive approach to retention by following these four tips to avoid customer churn by keeping them overly satisfied and building unshakeable loyalty.
- Get to know them. The art of making personal connections and building relationships may have been shaken up by the pandemic, but it’s still important. Little details like acknowledging your contact’s birthday and customer anniversary date, and bonding over shared interests go a long way in personalizing your service and turning you into more than just an IT vendor.Plus, checking in virtually is totally acceptable and actually preferred by 70% to 80% of B2B decision makers.
- Measure satisfaction. Taking the pulse of your current customers regularly via surveys and support desk interactions will not only make them feel heard, but your MSP will also come away with a wealth of knowledge on how to improve and address pain points. Mining user feedback for golden opportunities—and then taking action—helps prevent your customers from looking elsewhere for managed services.
- Check in regularly. Are you scheduling quarterly business reviews (QBRs) with all of your clients? Doing so might be the single most important way to retain customers, as you’ll have the undivided attention of decision makers as you highlight your MSPs’ contributions, answer questions, provide recommendations and generally strengthen the relationship.QBRs provide the opportunity to shine as your company’s IT consultant and reinforce your commitment to their success. Data-driven reports that underscore your contributions with hard numbers are difficult to ignore, and customers will be less likely to leave an MSP that has their best interests at heart and delivers on those interests consistently.
- Add value, always. Technology and how we interact with it is constantly changing, so MSPs must keep one step ahead for their customers or risk being abandoned for a more adept provider. MSP menus of service continue to grow as customer environments become more challenging to manage and cyber threats become sneakier. From the talent you hire to the services you provide, constant growth is essential in this industry. As author Louise Penny says, “If you aren’t growing and evolving, you’re standing still, and the rest of the world is surging ahead.”
Don’t get lulled into a false sense of security when it comes to your customers’ loyalty. Keeping them happy—by helping them grow through expert management of their IT systems—is a continuous endeavor, but one well worth the effort.
If you’re struggling to find the time to focus on customer retention, it may be because you’re bogged down by menial, manual tasks. Automation standardizes and streamlines your onboarding, documentation, system monitoring and reporting processes, freeing up time to avoid customer churn with these strategies.
To see all the ways automation can put time back into your day so you can better serve your customers, schedule a personalized demo of Liongard.