The Value Conversation Part 2: How to Convince Your Clients You Add Value
BY IT GLUE | April 30, 2019
It’s not enough to talk the talk, you’ve got to walk the walk. In other words, your clients don’t just want to hear about the value you add, they want to see the value you add. In the really obvious sense, that means that you should be following through on the services you say you’re going to offer (like, actually adding value), but doing it is just the first step.
To make sure your clients understand the value you’re bringing, you might need to break things down a bit for them, and really show them how your services make a difference. What’s an obvious and massive time-saving solution in your eyes, may not be understood the same way on your clients’ end.
Use your marketing strategy to differentiate
Part of convincing your clients of your value is making it obvious that you stand out among the rest. If your service offering looks exactly the same as everyone else’s, your clients might not immediately recognize where you provide value. Find the thing that makes your MSP unique and then continue to work on excelling at it. If you don’t have that thing, find it.
Your marketing strategy should reflect this. From what you talk about on your website to what you say on your social media, your clients and prospects should be able to recognize who you are, what separates you from the pack, and where you provide value. Consider making customer testimonials available on your website so that new prospects can learn about the value you’ve brought businesses similar to themselves.
Master the art of hitting your SLAs
Your service level agreements (SLAs) are a key measuring tool between you and your clients. They’re also a key way of showcasing that you’re delivering on the value you say you’re going to provide. When you begin to map these out with your clients, stay away from just your average cookie-cutter agreement. These should meet your customers specific needs. When they do, it will be obvious that you’re paying attention.
These agreements aren’t just about response times or uptime either, they’re about outlining the benefits that your services provide, and then allowing you and your client to identify whether or not you’re delivering on them. When you’re crushing your SLAs, your value is going to be pretty convincing.
Stay current with trends and with your customers
Part of the value conversation is making sure you keep up with what your clients need. There are two different ways you should be doing this. The first, is that you should stay in tune with the current trends, concerns, and topics in the industry. For example, security is a big part of the conversation right now, regardless of how much your clients might know about it. You know the importance of it, so staying ahead of the game and ensuring that you’re providing your clients with the necessary level of security and then educating them on it is huge.
Stay connected with your clients. Whether that’s through your quarterly business reviews (QBRs) or catching up during regular pulse checks. Getting in touch with your clients and ensuring you’re offering what they need, and willing to step into potential new areas to meet their needs, will go a long way to demonstrate value. Evidently, they’ll be able to tell you whether they’re experiencing the value you provide – or you’ll see areas where it might need some work.
Keep up with your documentation
It always comes back to documentation. It has to. Your processes are a key source, if not one of the most important sources, of being able to convince your clients you add value. After all, they offer the groundwork for everything you do and how you do it. It’s both how you ensure that you actually are providing value, and how you show that value to your customers.
At the end of the day, convincing your customers of the value you provide comes down to more show than tell. Your customers themselves are an excellent resource for understanding whether the value you say you provide is actually being experienced on their end.
To learn how IT Glue can help you master your processes and offer greater value to your customers, sign up for a demo below.
IT Glue™ is a proven, best practices-driven IT documentation platform packed with features designed to help you maximize the efficiency, transparency, and consistency of your team. With so much of your business productivity lost each day in search of vital information, let IT Glue secure this information and start Freeing Minds™.
