Peanut butter and chocolate. Ham and eggs. Star Wars and J.J. Abrams. Some things are just better together.
As an MSP on the search for additional ways to satisfy your clients, you’re surely looking for that next great service combination that keeps your clients happy – and gives you a chance to pull in additional revenue. Achieve both by packaging a training service with your end-user tech support.
Up your retention game
We all know it costs more to acquire new clients than to retain them. However, to keep them from wandering off to your competitors, you must give them a reason to stay. Satisfaction in the services you provide and presenting new, inviting service options keep them coming back.
Adding managed services training services to end-user support plays remarkably well to an MSP’s retention strategy. It closes the client engagement circle with your organization. Thus, it’s more of a challenge for your competitors to get their attention.
Additionally, a managed services training package promotes:
- Preferred pricing
Introduce a cost-effective solution with discounted prices available only through your MSP partnership. - Empowered users
Provide relevant content your users will embrace. Continuous learning available at fingertips will reduce support calls to your help desk. - A proven engagement model
Deliver a coordinated, blended-learning solution that combines the different components and modalities of training into a single easy-to-use system. - Measured ROI metrics
Arm your AMs with valuable, useful metrics to make it easy for your clients to evaluate the effectiveness of their investment. - Driven user engagement
Transform business by providing best practices for achieving successful user adoption, thus increasing the bond between you and your client as a trusted partner.
Setting your scope of training services
What you include in your offer is entirely up to you. As alluded to above, a goal of your training services should be to empower your end-users. The more they know, the less they’ll be asking down the road.
Your training bundle could include some—or all—of the following:
- Software productivity
Cut down the number of, “How do I…” software support calls by teaching your clients’ end-users how to work effectively and efficiently within their applications. - Email
Mastering one’s inbox is increasingly difficult as entire conversations now take place over email. Best practices for managing inbox clutter, file attaching/sharing, and hygiene are critical day-to-day needs that any end-user could use. - Best practices for cloud tools
Cloud-based apps like SharePoint, OneDrive for Business and Skype for Business can be a huge boon for your clients...if they know how to use them properly. For example, Office 365 Groups provide a modern way to team members to work together.
- Backup and disaster recovery
From planning a recovery program to using it when disaster strikes, every organization should be fully trained in how to bounce back from disaster with minimal impact to the company. - Safe Internet Browsing
Whether your client offers its end-users wide-open or strict browsing capabilities, they could all benefit from knowing the safest methods for browsing, downloading online files, and communicating. - Acceptable Use policy adherence
If your client has an established usage policy, that’s a terrific place to start. At once you’ll gain insight into the accepted behaviors of the organization’s end-users, plus have an entire training plan delivered to your hands. - Security best practices
There seems to be a new cyber threat reported every time we swipe through our news feeds. Help your client protect itself by knowing the latest and greatest (or tried and true) security best practices. - Antivirus software
Show your clients how to detect and ward off viruses with their available antivirus solution.
Smarter users make life easier for you
Not only will you have more knowledgeable clients because of your training effort, you’ll have more bandwidth to focus on higher priority requests. You’ll also spend less time and energy fixing common software, internet-based, and email issues. That added time could be spent strategizing bigger and better plans for a client’s IT needs, or give you the precious hours needed to win new business.
A managed services training offer might even give you a leg up on your competition. Maintaining one may (seem to) need more manpower and resources than neighboring MSPs care to commit. While they’re crunching the numbers, your clients will be thrilled with the attention and concern for their day-to-day success you’ve shown. That satisfaction forms a powerful barrier between them and the competition.
Best of all, through the help of a trusted training partner, you can be completely hands-off from the training process!
KnowledgeWave offers on-demand video, live webinars and remote classroom learning for a wide range of topics your clients may need. Getting started with us is easy!
If you’re going to keep your clients, you must keep them satisfied. Showing a vested interest in their technology education empowers them to do more without asking more of you. Adding a training service to your end-user support offering is a powerful contributor to cementing that client joy. In turn, you’re rewarded the freedom to acquire new clients and protect your flock from competitive influence.
