How to Prevent Critical Breakpoints in the Managed Services Lifecycle

Whitepaper

IntroductionClient lifecycle management plays a huge role in the business growth of managed service providers (MSPs). Many

businesses tend to focus too much on customer acquisition and not enough on expanding relationships and client

retention. This can hurt them in the long term since acquiring new clients costs seven to ten times more than

retaining an existing client through contract renewal.

It’s no different for MSPs either. The longer their client relationships last, the more profitable they become. That’s

why it is essential for MSPs to ensure that the client journey remains rewarding throughout the five stages of the

managed services lifecycle.

Many MSPs cite attracting new clients and retaining the ones they have as two of their biggest challenges. But

with the right tools and approach, this doesn’t need to be the case.

In this whitepaper, we’ll take a deep dive into the managed services lifecycle and how MSPs can curtail client

attrition by doing the right things during each stage of the managed services lifecycle.

We will also touch upon the simple yet incredibly effective system of using IT assessments to not only win new

clients but also manage and grow service relationships year after year, contract after contract.

The Managed Services Client Lifecycle

The five general stages of a client’s lifecycle are:

While the Managed Services Lifecyle has a definitive beginning (acquiring a new customer), it need not have an

end. In an ideal scenario an MSP can have clients for the life of the business, so long as the owner of the business

understands the concept of the managed services lifecycle and works it into a looping process.

If the MSP is successful in onboarding the new client and creates a great first impression, the path is clear for

continual optimization of service delivery, continual growth and expansion of the relationship, ensuring the

renewal of the contract year after year.

The chart on the next page drills down on key milestones for each stage in the lifecycle.

1Managed Services Lifecycle | Rapidfire Tools

Acquisition OptimizationOnboarding Expansion Renewal

Managed Services Lifecycle | Rapidfire Tools

Winning New Customers

Identifying the Need

Presenting the Solution

Set Up for Success

The Master Configuration

Documenting the Process

Improve Profitability

Mastering Change Management

Policy Enforcement 101

Securing the IT Budget

Product Suit Review

The Science of Upgrades

The Trusted Advisor

Time to Shine

What Have We Learned

Acquisition

Optimization

Onboarding

Expansion

Renewal

The Managed Services Lifecycle Stages

The Acquisition Stage

The first stage of the managed services lifecycle is the acquisition stage. As an MSP, this stage involves directing

your efforts towards marketing and sales activities that result in winning a new client. This stage includes:

Į Getting in touch with the prospect

Į Identifying the opportunities – their pain points and needs

Į Presenting the solution to the prospect

Į Closing the deal

2

3Managed Services Lifecycle | Rapidfire Tools

The Onboarding Stage

During this stage, you prepare the client’s environment to ensure your systems and personnel are prepared to

service the client. As part of this process, you’ll set up basic tools for monitoring, patch management, centralized

antivirus and firewall updates. Policies for active directory and security are also reviewed and updated as per the

client’s requirements.

Information regarding the client’s network, systems and users is then added to your professional services

automation (PSA) tool so that the help desk team can immediately manage and support the client. All information

regarding procedures, policies and client setup should be documented for future reference.

The Optimization Stage

At this stage, you will want to ensure that you are managing the environment in the most productive way for you

and your client on a regular basis. Create baselines to understand the level of service your clients need. Ensure

that your services stand out as you provide exceptional uptime and decrease the response time for any incident.

Eliminate threats and risks that, if left unattended to, would cause huge disruptions, fire drills and downtime.

The Expansion Stage

Once you have a good rapport with your clients, you must work towards keeping them loyal and coming back to

you for more business. Report regularly to your clients and inform them about service level agreements (SLAs)

met. Ensure that they understand the value your services provide. Once that’s done, you can pitch new managed

services to them and convey the importance and significant benefits these services can provide.

The Renewal Stage

This is the most critical stage in the lifecycle of a client. To grow your business, you must make sure that

your clients stay with you and renew their contracts.

The following steps should be taken during this stage:

Į Prepare for a year-end review. Present a report that showcases your accomplishments, such as reduced

tickets, issues and risks addressed, better uptime and successful projects, to the client.

Į Recommend improvements. Let your clients know how you can help them with their business with

certain improved policies. Make them realize the additional value you can provide.

Į Propose renewal. This is the most crucial step in this stage. Before the contract with your client expires,

discuss new opportunities that can add value to their business. Propose a contract renewal and retain

your client.

4Managed Services Lifecycle | Rapidfire Tools

Potential Breakpoints in the Lifecycle

During a client’s lifecycle, there can be potential breakpoints that can sour your relationship with the client.

The Acquisition Breakpoint

At this stage, you have managed to contact your prospects but are unable to make a compelling case for them to

hire you. You haven’t identified the existing issues and risks to convince your prospect that their network is being

poorly managed.

Another common breakpoint is not being able to justify your proposed fee, especially if you are in a competitive

situation. You don’t want to lowball your fees just to win the business. Also, if you don’t have the relevant

documentation to support the fee, your prospects are unlikely to see the value of your pitch and refuse it, which

will ultimately cost you.

The Onboarding Breakpoint

The only chance you have to make a good first impression is during the onboarding of the client. If it takes you

weeks to onboard a new client, chances are you will be slow to identify and address issues and risks associated

with the new devices and users.

Another common onboarding breakpoint is discovering there’s more work to do than what you expected. For

example, you may not have known that your new client had a Hyper-V or VMware server prior to the onboarding,

which resulted in you underquoting for the project.

Underquoting risks negatively impacting goodwill and reputation with clients, especially if you need to true up

the quote during the first few weeks of a new engagement.

The Optimization Breakpoint

If your technicians aren’t optimizing client service processes, you could be fixing the same issues over and

over again. Resetting the same devices and responding to multiple help desk tickets from the same user can be

exhausting -- not only for your technicians but also for the clients who have to keep reporting the problems. Lack

of optimization costs you time, productivity and possibly contract renewals.

The Expansion Breakpoint

If you aren’t proactive about managing your clients’ networks and unaware of what’s changing over time, you’ll

have trouble expanding your relationships. It’s not unusual for clients to add their own devices onto the corporate

network or for the company to hire new people without telling you. You can’t rely on an RMM system to alert you

to these changes. That means you end up working more, supporting additional devices and users, without getting

paid more.

5Managed Services Lifecycle | Rapidfire Tools

Without regular assessments, you’re also less likely to identify changes in the client environment that would

open the door to new service opportunities. That, in turn, opens the door for other MSPs or IT providers to entice

your client with supplemental services that you could have otherwise provided. That’s lost revenue for you and

potentially lost renewal if other IT companies are also servicing that client.

The Renewal Breakpoint

If you fail to ensure that your client realizes the value of the services you have provided throughout the term of

your agreement, the renewal of the contract could be at risk.

Even more dangerous is the possibility that a competitor may attempt to poach one of your clients. If a competitor

swoops in on the sly and offers an IT assessment to your client, there’s a good chance they may find things that

will make you look bad and use their reports to wedge you out of the account.

Worse still, once a competitor knows they can steal one of your clients, they may look to make all your other

clients their prime prospects.

Sealing Breakpoints With IT Assessments

IT assessments provide complete visibility of a network environment, uncovering network and security risks and

exposing missed issues.

You can use IT assessments to gain a complete picture of a prospect’s existing network and make your pitch based

on their specific issues or vulnerabilities rather than just going in with a generic sales presentation. In fact, IT

assessments are a proven technique for converting prospects to clients.

Network Detective Pro provides automated IT assessments that can help you close more clients. And, as you’ll

learn, it can help you at every stage of your client’s lifecycle.

Making Acquisitions Work

With Network Detective Pro you can:

Į Run non-intrusive data collectors that record every operation in the network.

Į Create and share white-labelled, branded, customizable reports that detail any risks or vulnerabilities

found in the client network.

Į Review key network, security and cloud issues that you discovered on the client’s network.

With an automated network assessment, you can focus on acquiring the client and unveiling the negligence of

their current provider, all without missing any key information that needs to be presented.

Among the several reports to run and share with your prospect would be the Data Breach Liability Report. It

shows all instances of discovered Personally Identifiable Information (PII), such as credit cards, birth dates, social

security numbers, drivers’ license numbers, etc., and then displays the potential financial liability based on the

average fine per record breached.

Making Onboarding Work

Network Detective Pro’s IT assessments allow you to:

Į Document all details of every asset connected to the network

Į Collect user data directly from MS Exchange

Į Scan remote machines that aren’t connected to the network

Į Conduct a complete Microsoft 365 assessment

6Managed Services Lifecycle | Rapidfire Tools

Network Detective Pro’s Data Breach Liability Report

You can easily export system information to your professional services automation (PSA) software and convert

discovered issues into service desk tickets. Then, deploy your remote monitoring and management (RMM) agents

onto all systems discovered to immediately start servicing the new client.

With Network Detective Pro’s Full Detail Report, you can have all the details about the IT environment scanned,

including all configuration information needed about computers, servers, users, domains, groups, accessories

and peripherals, shares, applications, endpoints, security issues and more. This makes onboarding so much easier

since all of this data can be easily imported into other service management platforms.

Network Detective Pro’s Full Detail Report

7Managed Services Lifecycle | Rapidfire Tools

Making Optimization Work

Once a client is onboarded, using an IT assessment to optimize IT processes ensures that you can provide

maximum service uptime with reduced costs. With Network Detective Pro you can optimize your processes by:

Į Making sure you have no unknown systems on the client’s network that are not being managed by you. All

assets and new users must be billed accordingly.

Į Documenting the changes and the fixes that have been applied.

Į Having the client’s HR review the list of users with active logins and deleting users who have left the

company.

Į Notifying the client of users who violate policies. Being proactive and conducting regular assessments to

eliminate security risks.

Į Updating security policies and controls regularly. In case of repeat offenders, make sure you call them out

to the client.

Į Removing or blocking users that leave the client organization.

Į Ensuring that the client has a high-performing MS Cloud and SQL environment.

IT assessment reports enable you to perform the above actions effortlessly. Network Detective Pro also includes

a web-based portal that allows you to view all asset and user data without generating the reports. You can even

add your own notes and procedures to streamline service delivery.

Another feature of Network Detective Pro is the automated Consolidated Management Plan Report, running

which will alert you to recurring problems that need more focused remediation efforts. The Consolidated

Management plan does the hard work of compiling all the information about discovered issues and risks, scores

them based on severity, prioritizes them for you and even includes a recommendation on next steps to take.

8Managed Services Lifecycle | Rapidfire Tools

Making Expansion Work

Use IT assessments throughout the managed services lifecycle to find ways to expand client relationships and

increase your recurring revenue stream. This can be done by expanding the services you currently offer as your

clients grow (i.e., as they add more users and assets) and by getting your clients to buy additional services from

you.

9Managed Services Lifecycle | Rapidfire Tools

Network Detective Pro’s Consolidated Management Plan Report

Here are a few ways Network Detective Pro can help you expand your existing client relationships.

Į Upselling and cross-selling products - Keep your clients’ environment up to date by selling them value-

added hardware refreshes or software upgrades, new cloud services, enhanced security services like Dark

Web monitoring, and more.

Į Supporting remote work - Expand your services by providing remote work support. Since many

businesses have their employees working from home, supporting them to manage their remote employees

effectively can increase your revenue.

Į Providing layered managed security - Although your clients may be using basic antivirus/anti-malware

programs, they will need a layered defense strategy against cybercriminals due to the rapid increase in

cybercrime in recent years. Address the gaps and flaws in your clients’ systems by providing effective

security services and generate a new revenue stream.

Į Unlock recurring revenue with compliance - If your clients are from the healthcare or finance industry,

providing a well-rounded compliance offering can get your cash registers pinging. Many companies

struggle to comply with the various industry standards and regulations. MSPs can leverage their existing

relationships with clients to offer compliance services that include security risk assessments and more.

Į Introduce cyber liability insurance to clients - Cyber liability insurance makes sure your clients are

protected in case of a cyber incident. If cybercriminals infiltrate your client’s infrastructure and

compromise their data and demand ransom, cyber liability insurance can come to their rescue and

protect them from going bankrupt.

In addition to help you sell-in new services, Network Detective Pro enables you to find more users and assets to

be billed.

With Network Detective Pro you can audit the network to identify any assets that may have been brought

onto the network without your knowledge. As the client grows, many users and assets may be added to the

environment, which will require centralized monitoring, patch management and antivirus tools. Make sure you

charge for these.

10Managed Services Lifecycle | Rapidfire Tools

You can also run another Network Detective Pro’s report called the Network Assessment Change Report that

will compare the results from any two assessments you have run and highlight in yellow any changes that might

represent billable events. You can use other reports to identify opportunities to sell in more security services,

backup, hardware and software enhancements and more.

11Managed Services Lifecycle | Rapidfire Tools

Network Detective Pro Active Users Screen

Network Detective Pro’s Network Assessment Change Report

12Managed Services Lifecycle | Rapidfire Tools

Making Contract Renewal Work

Use Network Detective Pro’s IT assessments to stay on top of your game. Use information from the reports to

present accurate assessments of the network, of team performance and system health checkups.

You can document changes and improvements made to the client’s network and present those in purpose-built

quarterly business review (QBR) reports.

Discuss unresolved issues in the reports with your client. In case of any unresolved concerns, let them know

whether they were due to budgetary constraints as agreed upon by clients or due to compensating controls.

Ensure that your competitors don’t use assessments to call out the same problems and wedge you out of the

client account.

Network Detective Pro includes purpose-built progress reports and business review reports to help you

communicate your value to your clients on an ongoing basis.

Network Detective Pro Generated QBR Report

RapidFire Tools, Inc creates innovative business-building technology tools for Managed Service Providers (MSPs). More than

8,000 technology service professionals worldwide use products from RapidFire Tools to close more business, offer more

services, keep more customers, and make more money. The company’s offerings include Network Detective®, a complete suite

of IT assessment, documentation and reporting tools; Compliance Manager, the only Compliance Automation Tool for MSPs;

and Cyber Hawk, a custom cybersecurity appliance that enables an MSP to offer insider cyber threat detection and alerting.

To learn more, visit www.rapidfiretools.com or call 678-323-1300.

About RapidFire Tools

CONCLUSION

Automated IT assessments help you win new clients, grow them and keep them at every stage of the managed

services lifecycle. Leverage IT assessments to build healthy relationships with your clients rather than allowing

them to become passive, disengaged and a flight risk.

Network Detective Pro’s IT assessments are a great way to discover issues and risks as your client network

environments change, improve service delivery and recognize new opportunities to sell new services.

Unlike RMM tools, which rely on individually installed agents to monitor computers and alert on specific issues,

Network Detective Pro uses proprietary, non-intrusive network and local computer data collectors that require

no software, probes or agents. It creates comprehensive and detailed “snapshots” of each client network on a

regular basis, giving you clear benchmarks and a documented history of your service.

Learn more about Network Detective Pro by reaching out to RapidFire Tools and requesting a demo. Product

evaluations are also available for qualified MSPs.

If you would like to view and/or download a sample of the reports noted in this whitepaper, or any other Network

Detective Pro report, click here.