10 ways to help your clients gain IT Confidence
Intermedia’s 2016 IT Confidence Index reveals the challenges faced by IT professionals and the level of confidence they feel in their abilities to:
Provide general IT services to their users
Protect their companies from cyber threats
Navigate through the complex technologies of today and tomorrow
As IT service providers, you are in a unique position to help your clients succeed in these areas. This checklist offers 10 ways to boost your clients’ IT confidence and help directly address the issues uncovered in our 2016 IT Confidence Index Report.
Contact us to learn more. CALL US EMAIL US
ON THE WEB
+44(0)20 3384 2158
[email protected] intermedia.co.uk J.D. Power 2016 Certified Assisted Technical Support Program, developed in conjunction with TSIA. Based on successful completion of an audit and exceeding a customer satisfaction benchmark for assisted support operations. For more information, visit www.jdpower.com or www.tsia.com.
Our 2016 IT Confidence Index asked IT decision makers nearly 40 questions about 4 key topics: General IT Services, Security, Infrastructure and Skilled IT Workforce. The following 10 tips will help you provide your clients with the tools they need to be successful in these areas and feel more confident about the state of their IT.
1. Be the trusted advisor. Professional services like user training, compliance risk assessments, file restoration, tier 1 support, etc. mean as much to your clients as the applications and hardware you provide. These types of “soft” services help you build a stronger bond with your clients. Being a trusted advisor also means showing your client how you can support them now and in the future as their needs change. 2. Embrace the cloud. Cloud-based services tend to offer your clients higher levels of reliability and security than they could achieve with on-premises systems. On average, respondents indicated that 56% of their IT applications are running in the cloud. As their company size increased, the overall percentage of cloud usage did as well. Focusing on cloud solutions will enable you to move your own business towards a recurring services model rather than just reselling hardware. With 37% of surveyed organizations expecting to use more cloud-based applications over the next 6 months, you’ll be well positioned to scale your cloud business along with this demand. 3. Combat cyber threats. When it comes to cybersecurity, respondents worry about everything from phishing to malware to DDoS attacks, but they expressed the greatest concern in their ability to fight ransomware. Your clients count on you to stay ahead of the curve, and combatting cyber threats is no exception. To combat ransomware, give your clients a cloud backup solution that offers realtime file restoration to help them recover quickly from ransomware attacks and file loss events. SecuriSync® by Intermedia is one solution to consider. SecuriSync’s 2-in-1 backup and file sharing capabilities will protect you and your clients against data loss and can be a vital part of a disaster recovery strategy. You’ll be a hero to your clients while adding ransomware recovery to your list of service offerings. 4. Leverage standardization. Your role as an IT service provider is to bring clarity to your clients. Managing multiple disparate solutions can create inefficiencies that can negatively impact both your own ability to conduct business and your clients’ confidence. Look for vendors that offer integrated solutions that are easy to manage and build upon. Standardizing on a specific set of solutions as a specialty can keep your own costs under control, help you differentiate from other vendors, and reduce complexity for your clients. 5. Make user training a priority. It’s hard to believe, but 11% of respondents said their organization has
still never offered interactive IT security training. All it takes is one user clicking on a phishing email and your day is unexpectedly spent helping that client battle viruses, malware and other cyber attacks. Frequent user education sessions are a powerful tool for boosting client confidence while helping to protect against threats, making education a great professional service to include in your offerings. 6. Give smaller clients a leg up. Index results revealed that IT professionals at smaller companies are much less confident than their counterparts at larger companies. Data showed that this can mostly be attributed to having fewer resources – both monetary and human. Your services and expertise can be invaluable to these smaller companies, especially ones that need to comply with governmental regulations. 7. Don’t fear compliance. Companies in regulated industries such as healthcare and financial services have unique IT needs. Often, smaller organizations with little or no IT staff need extra layers of security and technology to comply with regulations. Helping these companies with compliance mandates provides MSPs with a great opportunity. 8. Consider adding more professional services. Your clients need more than just business email, file storage, or phone service. They need the professional services that go along with those products – training, migrations, upgrades, support, growth/ future planning, disaster recovery plans and risk assessments, etc. These services offer a path for differentiation from your competition while driving client loyalty. 9. Choose your vendors wisely. Make sure you pick solution providers that offer the highest levels of security, reliability and support. Doing so supplies 2 benefits: your clients will appreciate the extra protection and ease-of-use that comes with premium products; and you will have fewer worries when it comes to management and support. 10. Make alleviating stress your #1 goal. When you help your clients feel more confident about their IT solutions, you become indispensable. Confidence comes when clients feel they can trust you to protect them from threats and set them up to win. Help your clients invest their IT dollars wisely in technologies (like cloud-based solutions) that support their needs without increasing budgets or causing workplace disruptions.
2
Higher IT confidence equates to greater client loyalty As an IT service provider, your goals are twofold: develop enduring client relationships and run a profitable business. By providing clients with high-touch service and top quality products, you boost their IT confidence and earn their repeat business. Differentiating offerings from the competition through specialization, cloud technology and increased professional services will help you win more deals while keeping operating costs manageable. When choosing solutions to sell and vendors to partner with, consider vendors that offer integrated services and a channel-first approach to partnership. Intermedia provides both. Whether you’re new to providing managed cloud services or a seasoned expert, Intermedia makes it easy to build recurring revenue streams, provide high quality cloud applications to your client, expand your professional services offerings, and deepen client relationships. We can help you successfully fulfill all 10 items on this checklist, boosting your clients’ IT confidence as well as your own.
Choose Intermedia Intermedia enables you to sell over 20 integrated cloud services without changing how you do business. Our 3 partnership models are designed to adapt to different customer needs. You can choose on a customer-by-customer basis how you want to do business. • • •
Private Label — You retain full customer ownership and control billing, branding and margins. We provide support throughout every aspect of the customer lifecycle, including white-labeled marketing materials and expert sales assistance to help you close the deal. Advisor — You leverage our brand, billing, and support, but we won’t actively market to your customers. We provide behind-the-scenes sales assistance to help you close the deal and give you one-time and recurring commissions. Referral — You pass us the lead, we close the deal, and we pay you a one-time commission.
And with Intermedia, there’s just one login, one password, one control panel, and one bill, with enterprise-grade security, a 99.999% uptime SLA and award-winning 24/7 support, as certified externally by TSIA and J.D. Power. Visit www.intermedia.co.uk to learn how to become an Intermedia partner.
Contact us to learn more. CALL US EMAIL US
ON THE WEB
+44(0)20 3384 2158
[email protected] intermedia.co.uk J.D. Power 2016 Certified Assisted Technical Support Program, developed in conjunction with TSIA. Based on successful completion of an audit and exceeding a customer satisfaction benchmark for assisted support operations. For more information, visit www.jdpower.com or www.tsia.com.
