Q&A: Treat Customer Interaction Like An Important Date

By Len DiCostanzo, Senior Vice President of Community and Business Development, Autotask

What do MSPs need to do to take their practices to the next level?

As a former solution provider, our goal was to own each piece of technology that helps support and run the client’s business. This thought process is still the way it has to be done today. It is not about owning the office, but owning the IT solutions that resolve business needs, wherever those solutions are housed. And, by ‘own’, I do not necessarily mean ‘install’ or ‘implement’ them directly. I mean the solution provider should manage the process — whether the implementation is done by their own team, another solution provider’s team, or a vendor’s team — then manage the solution by bolting on recurring managed services every time. This is the path to earning a client for life; going deeper and wider over time.

As far as getting to the next level, certainly new opportunities like cloud services always need to be looked at and included in the provider’s solution tool bag, and included in their recommendations to resolve the business needs of their clients or prospects. We are also advising providers to focus on verticals, as gaining this level of expertise will open doors to new opportunities.