Are Your MSP Clients Staying?

The Average Stay is 5 Years According to Those Deep Into the MSP Offerings

So how do you keep clients longer, or avoid having even shorter retention. If you could stop just 5% of your clients from leaving – increasing their lifetime value by one of more years, you would see an immediate uptick in profitability.

Do the math…client retention is perhaps one of the fastest ways to increase your income.

Yesterday, my partners over at Ingram Micro sponsored a live online training where I was to present 4 things you should be doing to increase retention. Unfortunately we had some technical difficulties and will be rescheduling. In the mean time, here are a few things to consider…

Welcoming Your New Clients. This is perhaps the weak point in any annuity business. You spend months on selling, sign them up, and then set them up. The assumption is, they need your services, and as long as you perform, they’ll stay. That’s not the case. Chances are they signed up because they had pressing issues. 3 or 4 years after fixing those issues, they’ll forget.

Your welcome kit should be special, and it should be lasting. It might include posters, booklets, and more. Hard-copy materials that they refer to regularly to get the help they need. Consider issues like; getting most out of your technology, maintaining performance on systems, and tips to keep data secure.

Staying In Touch. Do you send them a newsletter? If you don’t, you should. But don’t write about Microsoft and Dell. They don’t care. Give them information they can use. I posted on this topic a few days ago – it might be worth going back to review.

Start with an Assessment. You might think this lengthens the sales process. It doesn’t. Not only does it speed up approval, it increases retention. Show them they have major holes, and keep them up to date on who’s attacking what. Suddenly they need you long term.

Provide vCISO/CIO services. Today’s CIO is responsible for helping their companies stay on track with technology. As the Digitalization Megatrend takes shape, every company needs this function, however, small businesses can not afford to hire qualified CIOs. On the Security side, the same is true.