A modern client experience is all about information that’s easy to access (and that’s always available).
That’s true for pretty much any industry – from the power company that serves up electricity bills to your retirement 401k account. Modern customers demand seamless digital experiences that give them what they want to see, when they want to see it, and on the devices that they want to use.
For managed service providers (MSPs), the same holds true.
The irony is that in an industry focused on technological advancement and staying on the cutting edge, there are far too many MSPs still focused on delivering outdated analog client experiences.
Let’s take a look at what a “digitized” experience looks like and how to achieve it.
Defining “Analog” vs. “Digital” in a Client Experience
In the strictest dictionary sense, an analog experience is one that is physical. There are quite a few analog client experience habits that we see MSPs revert to, time and time again:
- Print-and-present reviews
- This is where MSPs take reports from various tools (like vCIO, network, security software and more) and physically print this out and review them with their clients.
- In-person meetings
- While not bad at all times (who doesn’t like a little face-to-face time?), having people come on-site all the time can be unnecessary, depending on the nature of the visit.
- Taking phone calls for ticket submissions
- Okay, so it’s not technically analog – but the idea of taking phone calls isn’t very efficient. It requires someone to pick up the phone and answer a client and usually involves logging a ticket in the PSA for them.
It’s not that the analog client experience is broken – it’s that it doesn’t jive with the modern expectations of the average person. In all three examples listed above, there’s not a way to deliver constant value in a scalable way.
How can you deliver a business strategy review when someone can’t make it to the office? What if you need to support an organization that doesn’t have a physical location or has team members scattered around the globe? When it comes to ticketing, how can you prove your value if you can’t accurately track your customer submissions?
Digitizing the customer experience means putting thought into turning the entirety of customer interactions with the MSPs and making them accessible and valuable for the customer.
A Digital Client Experience Starts with a Portal
To deliver a digital client experience at scale, you need a home base.
This home base will serve as an area where you can direct your customers for various needs – everything from ticket submission to user training, and a place where they can see the more strategic value that you can deliver (such as with high-level reporting and road mapping).
Moreover, you need to consider that the average person won’t be willing to jump around to different websites to get their information from you. The modern consumer is accustomed to getting everything in one place whenever they feel like it. The same is true for their IT information.
CloudRadial, a comprehensive MSP client portal solution, was built specifically for this purpose.
The thought process in its development was to build a “home base” portal for MSP customers that can hit all of the areas that are necessary to create a modern, delightful, and genuinely useful client experience.
Some of the intranet-focused features within CloudRadial include:
- An application launcher
- A company directory
- A messaging and announcement board
- A course training area
- A ticketing and service catalog module
- A knowledge base
These features help to cement a home base portal that adds value to a client.
Remember that digitalization doesn’t just mean putting things online – you always have to balance your online strategy with usefulness to ensure that the customer keeps coming back to the portal day after day.
For administrative-level users, CloudRadial offers features such as:
- Infrastructure reporting
- M365 reporting
- Domain reporting
- Data breach reporting
- Assessments
- Report archiving
- Dashboards
- IT road mapping
Keeping these features separate and out of the sight of the average user allows the MSP to keep their digital experience complete without bogging down those that don’t need to see it.
Building a Digital Experience with CloudRadial
CloudRadial gives you the means to create a digital experience – with plenty of sample content to get you going. The entire strategy is best understood by looking at the full client experience holistically – every stage, from Landing, Onboarding, Managing, and Growing each client.
For more details on digital strategy: LOMG from CloudRadial
Of course, the best way to get started on a digital strategy is to build one for yourself. Give CloudRadial a shot for yourself through a trial and see how you can develop a home-based platform that your clients will love.
