Lessons from the worlds Top 5 MSP's

1. CLIENT INTIMACY – SECRETS
FROM FIVE OF THE WORLD’S
MOST SUCCESSFUL MSPS
Gordon Tan – CEO of Client Heartbeat
Gordon@clientheartbeat.com

2. Research Process
• Analysed data of 316 MSPs using Client Heartbeat
• Reached out to the top 10 and 5 agreed to participate in our research

3. The top MSPs….
We identified “3 secrets” to their success

4. Secret #1 - Let’s start with a
story…

5. A story about the airline industry

6. A losers market
The US airline industry has lost $52 billion dollars since 2002.

7. JetBlue
• Started in 2000
• New low cost airline decides to enter the market….
• Formerly from SWA
• Started flying in 9 cities…

8. Would you invest your money?
• Losers market!
• Very capital intensive!
• Massively competitive
• Commoditised
• Dangers with Growth
• Problems with Scaling

9. By 2007
• Over 60 destinations and 160 aircraft
• Today the 7th largest airline in the US employing 9,600 staff

10. Here’s what David Neeleman has to say…
“What keeps me awake at night is figuring out how we
grow this culture. How do we bottle this and keep it
going. At the end of the day it’s all about attitude”

11. #1 - In the top 5 MSPs, they felt
development of company
culture was the biggest driver of
their results

12. What is “Culture”?

13. Culture
Culture is social control. It is sets of information that tells staff what
to do in the absence of procedures
“It’s impossible to monitor the actions of every employee
no matter how many accounting and compliance controls
you put in place…a company’ cultural code is supposed to
equip front-line employees to make the right decisions”
Fortune Magazine

14. Culture
• Everyone has a culture – it’s whether you choose to leave it
unmanaged or managed
• The top 5 manage their culture
• It’s common sense!

15. How do you affect culture?
• You affect culture by:
• Defining Values
• Hiring/Firing based on Values
• Incentives
• Symbolic changes
• Management constant reinforcement (often from Director)
• Celebrate

16. Remember
• Much of what we accept as true, or important comes from our
external environment and peers
• Up to 98,000 people die each year from medical errors. In a study
73% of doctors reported washing their hands
The actual observed rate was 8%
2

17. #2 – In the top 5 MSPs everyone
had systemised/structured
Customer Satisfaction
processes…

18. But the real secret was the
combination of the structured
and the “unstructured” (culture)

19. Systemising Client Satisfaction
• Client Feedback is integrated through multiple “feedback loops”
• Quarterly Business Reviews
• Integration into company meetings
• Quarterly customer feedback surveys
• Trending the results
• Formal meetings scheduled to improve client satisfaction

20. Systemising Client Satisfaction
• These procedures ensure staff consistently act on any feedback
• Formal procedures to deal with “at Risk” Clients
3

21. #3 – But first another story..

23. #3 – The Top 5 maintain their
prices and understand the
reasoning behind it

24. Price and Service
• Low price = less resources = harder to deliver good service
• The Top 5
• Maintain their price
• Are selective with clients

25. Let’s Recap:
#1 – Culture
#2 – Client Sat. Procedures
#3 – Pricing

26. Actionable strategies from each
of the Top 5…

27. Abussi
• Standardisation is a big help in delivering
great service

28. Quorum IT
• Staff retention is key to great service

29. Leading IT
• Answer phones live and try to resolve issues
straight away – 40% first call resolution

30. Clear Path IT
• Treat clients as “close friends”

31. Apex IT
• Use PSA to find contacts they haven’t spoken
to in 2 months – give them a call!

32. The Top 5 challenge themselves
to think and act different…

33. At Client Heartbeat we challenge
you to become Best in Class

34. Why Best in Class matters…
• BIC companies have 70% better retention rates than “average” MSPs
• Losing just one $1,500 contract each year for 4 years and you will lose
$180,000 in revenue.
• BIC companies can charge higher prices for their services
• BIC companies are growing on average at 30% pa.
• BIC companies are getting more referrals
• BIC companies get higher sale values

35. Client Satisfaction Monitoring on Auto-pilot.
1. Gather client feedback
2. Improve client satisfaction
3. Retain more clients
4. Collect & Share Testimonials
• Used by over 300 MSPs big & small
• Integrates with CW & Autotask

36. Gather Client Feedback
Simple, personalized email
surveys – with automated
email follow-ups
Industry high survey
response rates (60%)
Runs on autopilot
Passes all feedback into a
simple dashboard

37. Improve Client Satisfaction
Track and monitor
changes in satisfaction
on an individual client
level and on an overall
company level
Benchmark satisfaction
against other companies
in your industry

38. Retain more clients
Client Heartbeat uses
past scores and industry
data to identify unhappy
customers
Get instant notifications
so you can proactively
follow up, address
concerns and retain
their business

39. Collect and share testimonials
If we detect positive
feedback we’ll ask for
testimonials and collect
them automatically
The client can also
share these to their
social media

40. Here’s what your peers say about CHB…
• Within a week of using Client Heartbeat I was comfortable
recommending it to 10 of my peers. – Myles Keough (Spadetech)
• Very valuable solution!!!!!! Every company can benefit from using
Client Heartbeat - it is a key metric for any executive to follow. –
Janice Siddons (TUC Managed Solutions)
• Client Heartbeat is a straightforward simple tool we can use to track
how we are going in our business, without having to wait for
customers to tells us we are doing something wrong! – Wayne Moore
(Divest IT)

41. Thank you – Questions?
Credits to: Charles O’Reilly Stanford Graduate School of Business for
various facts & figures