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Who’s your top rival? Dell Silverback? A local managed service provider? Actually, it’s somebody you know far better. Here’s how to compete with them — and beat them in the market.
To succeed as an MSP you need to compete head-on against … yourself, asserts J. Michael Drake, chairman and CEO of masterIT — a managed service provider ranked No. 6 on our annual MSPmentor 100 list.
So, how do you compete against yourself? The shortest answer, notes Drake, is to measure everything. For example: Use quarterly surveys to determine customer satisfaction with your services. And then try to improve upon those results every quarter.
In one recent survey, 65 percent of customers rated masterIT’s services as “good” and 35 percent of customers rated masterIT as “great.” Drake’s goal is to push the “great” rating higher, basically taking his company from good to great.
What else can you measure? Aside from the top-line stats (like year-over-year revenue growth), consider variables like:
- Revenue per employee
- Revenue per managed device
- Helpdesk response times
- Problem-to-resolution times
- Customer uptime
What other stats are you using to measure your success — and improve upon that success?
Posted In: MSP Mentor
Tags: competition | Managed Service Provider | Managed Services | MSP
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Mark
Joe.
Thank you for this post. Measuring is great when you have a baseline. And to get from good to great - you have to push harder based on the hard reality that something just isn’t good enough.
So, how about putting some of these measurements online not only for you to see but for your customers as well - and measure things such as:
1. Things the customer felt was valuable versus no value
2. Percentage of lost customers to a competitor
3. Salesforce closing rate, cold call rate
4. Percentage of wait time per customer (in real time)
5. Measure ability to achieve strategic business goals
6. Measure services customers desire and recieved
Number 6 is important based on the very fact that consumers want what others want. When we see what a customer desires, we all of the sudden want it too - whether it’s a service or product. Take the business opportunity to turn measuring into marketing.
NewMSPguy: You sound like an old pro on this measuring-for-success stuff. Thanks for the tips.
I encourage everyone to read “Good to Great” by Jim Collins. It also has some great tools to do both company and self evaluations.
Your brand is the most important brand, make sure that it shines with excellence.