The Role of Business Reviews in Customer Satisfaction

When it comes to providing the highest quality customer service for your clients, regular business reviews should be one of the top items on your to-do list. Business reviews are meetings, most commonly held quarterly, during which representatives from a service provider and a client discuss their current IT situation and plan how technology might be used in the future to improve business operations. A quarterly review will evaluate the progress of longer projects and make adjustments to their plans if necessary.

What makes quarterly business reviews so important for an MSP/client relationship?

Demonstrate Value of Services/Products

Every year businesses spend thousands of dollars on making their customers feel good about previous purchases. That might seem like an unnecessary expense for many managed IT providers, but the truth is that it’s important to remind your customers how valuable your services are.

It seems that most people don’t think about their technology until it is malfunctioning and many managed IT services take place ‘behind the scenes’. For example, consider a remote monitoring and maintenance service. The majority of clients won’t even realize that patches and updates have been installed or a new strand of malware was identified and removed. Their technology continues to work properly, making it easy to lose sight of the true value of the services you’re providing them. Quarterly business reviews give your team a chance to discuss services and what actions you’ve taken to keep their businesses running smoothly but may have gone unnoticed.

Long Term Quality Control and Customer Feedback

When it comes to post-sale quality control, like customer satisfaction surveys and follow-up calls, there is usually a sharp drop off after the first few months of service. While the client was happy with the sales process and installation/setup of your services, a lack of regular touch points mean there is a chance that the client is less than thrilled with the service you’re providing. Your client may not have been mad enough to call and complain about the issue but have decided to find a new service provider or were able to be poached by your competition over a minor issue. Quarterly Business Reviews give you the opportunity to build customer loyalty and brand reputation by measuring client satisfaction on a regular basis, long after the ‘honeymoon phase’ of your IT partnership is over.

Upselling and Cross Selling Opportunity Identification

Prior to attending a quarterly business review, your team should evaluate a client’s hardware and software, and make note of upgrades and updates that your team could suggest during the meeting. While your team is meeting with a client, you’ll probably be asking them a lot of questions about whether or not their current IT solutions and infrastructure are meeting their organizational demands and what, if any, technology related issues they’re experiencing. All the while, your team should be thinking about how you can upsell and cross sell your services and products. For example, a comment about employees regularly working in the office on the weekend could be a great time to suggest adding a 24/7 help desk, just in case they’re needed. Remember that your goal is to build a long term, loyal client, so your attempts to increase revenue shouldn’t be so forceful that they’re put off from ever attending a QBR again.

Increases Testimonials and Referrals

Quarterly business reviews open the floodgates of communication throughout the year. It also gives your team multiple opportunities to create testimonials and to request the referral of their peers to your service. Since you’re going to meet regularly, you’ll be able to get feedback from them about their experience over the past three months and request a testimonial about the times that your team may have gone above and beyond the call of duty. QBRs can also give you the opportunity to arrange the recording of a video testimonial, a very effective part of a marketing strategy. Even if you’re running regular referral campaigns, there is nothing like an in-person meeting to really gauge a client's level of satisfaction and ask them if there is anyone they feel could benefit from the type of technology service you can provide.

Here’s a few pro-tips that can help you build a successful QBR cycle into your business operations:

• Set Expectation of Business Review: Business reviews should be built into your sales cycle. Prospects should be first introduced to your business review cycle as they’re learning about your organization and the services/products that you have to offer. This will set the expectation early that you’re going to follow-up with them and make sure that they’re satisfied with your services.
• Do Your Homework: Even if you’ve been working with a client for years, evaluating their technology and current IT services before meeting with go a long way toward looking a true IT expert. Don’t forget to check out their line-of-business software and any other special technology the client may use.The more you know about where their technology is now, the more they’re likely to trust you to help them prepare for the future.
• Keep Your Reviews Consistent: One of the worst mistakes a business can make is to be wishy- washy about a business review schedule. If you say it’s going to a quarterly meeting, make sure that there is someone who is overseeing the process and that the reviews are scheduled well ahead of time.
• Plan Your Quarterly Business Reviews in ConnectWise: Drop a track to send a series of messages to remind clients of upcoming review. Create activities for a sales representative or account manager and an engineer to make sure they have time to prepare, in addition to the actual meeting.
• Offer Information of Value: Is a client hesitant to purchase additional services? Leaving behind marketing collateral (case studies, brochures, etc.) full of relevant and valuable information may help to persuade them to purchase additional services. You may also want to have a network status report, so you can remind them of the benefits of your services.

Would you like to build business reviews into your operations? Or maybe your company is in need of marketing deliverables, like brochures or case studies? JoomConnect’s team can help you develop a marketing strategy that works for your MSP.