Why Your MSP Should Be Measuring Customer Satisfaction

Feb 04, 2019

Utilize Customer Satisfaction Surveys to Personalize Service Offering

Research conducted by ConnectWise reported nearly 50 percent of MSPs do not evaluate the success of their managed service business based on customer satisfaction. Instead, a majority of MSPs rely on profitability and service reliability to measure their success.

Failing to evaluate and measure customer satisfaction can be detrimental to your business, as customers share positive experiences with an average of nine people, and negative experiences with an average of 16 people.

Without understanding the attitudes and preferences of your customers, you may be putting your business at risk.

Differentiate your MSP in a crowded market

As the managed IT service market continues to grow, MSPs struggle to differentiate themselves in the crowded market. In order for MSPs to stand out, they must position themselves as offering more than just a large portfolio of services. They must take the initiative to evaluate the satisfaction of their customers and ensure they are listening to feedback in order to provide their customers with unmatchable service.

One of the most effective ways to measure customer satisfaction and loyalty is through a strategically developed customer satisfaction survey.

Developing Strategic Survey Questions

In preparation of developing an effective customer satisfaction survey, it is important to determine what you want to learn from the survey results. By developing strategic survey questions, you ensure the data collected benefits both you and your customers. Below are a list of best practices in regard to developing survey questions:

Utilize Scaled Questions:

Asking questions within a range of values enables you to better capture the attitudes or feelings of your managed service customer, as in comparison to close ended or objective questions. For example, ask your customers how satisfied or dissatisfied they feel in regard to a particular area of service.

Conduct short answer questions:

Objective or scaled questions provide measurable feedback, however, open text questions provide your customers the opportunity to identify specific needs, concerns, or feelings they would not have been able to relay alternatively. Respondents will appreciate the opportunity to provide specific feedback, and may be more comfortable relaying concerns on a survey in comparison to over email or phone.

Net Promoter Score (NPS) Question:

The NPS question, “How likely would you be to recommend Company X to a friend or colleague?” is one of the most effective questions in measuring customer satisfaction and brand loyalty. Though the question is simple, it is accurate in determining loyal promoters of your business, as well as customers who are vulnerable to competition.

Personalize Questions:

In order to uncover specific information beneficial to your business, develop questions that specifically pertain to your industry or realm of operations. Generalized questions do not provide the survey respondents the opportunity to identify needs, concerns, or feedback specific to their relationship with your business.

Keep it Simple:

Be mindful and limit the number of questions asked. The respondent will be more willing to provide feedback and will not roll their eyes halfway through the survey. Design it with them in mind and don’t confuse them with industry jargon or long, overwhelming question choices. An easy way to gauge the quality of the survey is to develop one you'd be willing to take yourself.

Beneficial Uses of Survey Metrics

Identify Strengths and Weaknesses:

It is difficult to evaluate the performance of your MSP from an external standpoint while being involved in the internal daily operations. You may believe a facet of your business is performing well, while your customer thinks otherwise. By conducting customer satisfaction surveys, you are able to gather external viewpoints, and can proactively adapt and improve upon areas of concern for your customers.

Personalize Services to Customer Base:

After identifying areas your business is performing well, as well as areas that need improvement, you can customize service experiences based on the feedback provided by survey respondents. Customers are no longer settling for a “one size fits all” experience, which is why adapting and listening to the needs of your customer is crucial in differentiating your MSP from competitors.

Marketing Material:

Survey results equip your marketing team with loads of potential promotional content. You can utilize positive data or feedback by repurposing it into content for your website, social media accounts, or other marketing creatives. This can be in the form of customer quotes from short answer questions, survey statistics and charts, or a direct posting of the questions and answers.

Increased Reputability:

When potential customers visit your website or social media page they are on the lookout for potential red flags. By publishing real customer feedback or survey data, you increase your business’s reputability and build trust with potential customers.

Collabrance Conducts Biyearly Customer Satisfaction Surveys

We are committed to maintaining, and improving upon, our 97% customer satisfaction rating. In order to do this, we send out a survey to our customers biyearly to receive feedback of their experiences working with us. We use this feedback to evaluate the way we are conducting business, and make an effort to specialize our services based on the data, feedback, and recommendations we receive.

“We operate in a market that’s crowded with organizations who measure success by numbers of devices and users. The intent of Collabrance was not to be the biggest; instead we committed to be the best. Our numbers confirm we are delivering on that commitment.” said Greg VanDeWalker, Senior Vice President of IT Channel and Services at Collabrance.

Our success is measured by customer satisfaction ratings because we believe our accomplishments rely on both our partners and their customers' experience. We recently sent out our 2019 customer satisfaction survey and are anxious to evaluate the feedback.

Take a look back at some of the feedback we gathered from our customer satisfaction survey in 2017:

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