Published on June 20, 2023
Managed Service Providers (MSPs) play a crucial role in supporting and optimising IT infrastructures for their clients and the easier they are to do business with the more their customers will make use of the services on offer to them. To enhance customer experience and maximise operational efficiencies, MSPs must make their service catalogue available to the customer in the easiest way possible. Ideally, you would place this directly in the customer’s own IT Service Management solution (ITSM), which ServiceNow does excellently. However, when selling to small and medium-sized businesses, where this may not be an option, the next best method is to serve this up in the customer portal.
Whichever method of serving up the service catalogue is right for your MSP, this blog set out to explore the top five reasons why this is essential, highlighting the benefits, efficiencies, and up-sale opportunities it brings. However, in the research process, it became clear there are so many benefits to MSPs and their customers alike that we went ahead and wrote another 10 – just to make sure we didn’t miss anything important.
Top 5 Reasons
- Streamlined Access to Services: By providing the service catalogue digitally and directly to the customer, MSPs empower their clients with convenient and centralised access to a comprehensive range of services. For customers, having this information at their fingertips without ever having to ask, email, telephone and inevitably wait for an answer is significant. This eliminates the need for clients to navigate multiple channels or reach out to customer support for basic service inquiries, or search another provider’s website! With just a few clicks, customers can explore, select, and request the specific services they require, fostering a self-service approach that saves time and effort for both parties.
- Enhanced Transparency and Visibility: Making the catalogue available in this way results in a transparent window into the MSP's service offerings. It allows clients to explore detailed descriptions, service levels, features and pricing options for each service in the catalogue. This transparency builds trust and confidence, enabling customers to make informed decisions based on their unique requirements. With a clear understanding of available services, clients can align their IT strategies more effectively and have better visibility into the value they receive from their existing service provider. This helps prevent customers from being enticed away by a competitor due to a lack of information.
- Increased Efficiency and Productivity: Proactively presenting the service catalogue helps streamline the service provisioning process. Customers can easily submit service requests and track their progress in real-time, eliminating manual back-and-forth communication. This automation reduces administrative overhead for both the client and the MSP, freeing up valuable time and resources to focus on more critical tasks. By minimising delays and improving response times, efficiency and productivity are significantly enhanced.
- Upselling and Cross-selling Opportunities: The interactive service catalogue becomes a powerful sales tool for MSPs to showcase additional services or upgrades that align with their client’s evolving needs. Through well-placed recommendations and targeted promotions, MSPs can proactively highlight value-added services, demonstrating their expertise and commitment to the client's success. This creates new opportunities for upselling and cross-selling, leading to increased revenue streams and a stronger client-provider relationship.
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Integration with Automation and Order Management: The use of service automation as applied to tasks, such as Order Management, for example, creates a seamless end-to-end process with significant customer experience improvements. When a customer selects a service from the catalogue, the order management system automatically generates the necessary workflows and tasks, reducing manual intervention and ensuring swift and accurate service delivery. By leveraging automation, MSPs can achieve operational efficiencies, minimise errors, and provide a consistent and streamlined customer experience.
From streamlined access to services and enhanced transparency to increased efficiency, upselling opportunities and seamless order management, the advantages are significant. MSPs looking to deliver a superior customer experience, strengthen client relationships and drive business growth must ensure their customer experience is up to scratch. By empowering clients with self-service capabilities and leveraging automation, MSPs can position themselves as trusted partners in their clients' IT journeys.
Another 10 Reasons
If that wasn’t compelling enough, here are another 10 reasons why your service catalogue belongs to the customer:
- Improved Customer Satisfaction: The convenience and self-service nature of a digital service catalogue your clients can interact with leads to higher levels of customer satisfaction and retention. Clients can find, request, and manage services on their own terms, reducing dependency on manual interactions and enhancing overall satisfaction.
- Accurate Service Selection: By providing detailed descriptions, specifications, service levels and pricing information in the service catalogue, MSPs ensure that clients can accurately select the services that best fit their needs. This minimises the risk of misunderstandings or misaligned expectations, resulting in smoother service delivery. It also helps eradicate errors and the resulting remedial rework.
- Real-Time Availability and Updates: MSPs can update the service catalogue in real-time, ensuring that clients have the latest information at their fingertips. New services, upgrades, or changes can be immediately reflected, enabling clients to stay informed about the evolving offerings. When new services are added, customers can be alerted to ensure they are made aware.
- Increased Service Adoption: When clients have easy access to the service catalogue and can explore the full range of offerings, they are more likely to discover and adopt additional services. This leads to increased usage and higher ROI for both the client and the MSP.
- Customisation and Personalisation: MSPs may offer personalised recommendations and tailored service bundles. Clients can customise their selections based on their specific requirements and preferences, creating a more personalised and valuable experience.
- Proactive Service Management: MSPs can proactively manage and optimise services. They can monitor usage patterns, identify potential issues, and provide proactive recommendations for service enhancements or optimisations.
- Improved Communication and Collaboration: The service catalogue becomes a centralised platform for communication and collaboration between the client and the MSP. Clients can raise inquiries, provide feedback, or seek support directly through the portal or ITSM solution, fostering effective and efficient communication channels.
- Data-driven Insights: By capturing and analysing service requests and usage patterns from the customer, MSPs can gain valuable insights into client preferences, trends, and demands. This data can inform strategic decision-making, service portfolio management and future business planning.
- Competitive Advantage: Offering a comprehensive service catalogue sets MSPs apart from competitors. It demonstrates a commitment to innovation, customer-centricity, and streamlined service delivery, giving MSPs a competitive edge in the market.
- Scalability and Growth: As the client base expands, the self-service capabilities and automation offered through the service catalogue enables MSPs to efficiently handle increased service requests and deliver services at scale.
These additional improvements further highlight the advantages for MSPs, enhancing customer experience, operational efficiencies and business outcomes. To find out how your MSP could get these benefits - and more - please get in touch.
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