The CompTIA MSP Guidebook: Cultivating a Culture of Process E昀케ciency Build a Better Process: Customer Success Roadmap Strategy doesn’t come naturally, and customer success seems like a moving target, so how do you build them out in a meaningful way? 1. Pre-Meeting Planning One of the most important things that MSPs can do is educate their end user prior to a 昀椀rst meeting. This can be accomplished by delivering content that is speci昀椀c and relevant to a customer’s industry, their business, or their needs. Here are some actions you can take prior to a 昀椀rst meeting: • Send an “about us” email with meaningful content about your company and process • Email some statistics and content relevant to the customer and/or their market • Invite the customer to a webinar, either your own or from a vendor, which can help educate them on your solution and value • Send a meeting reminder email to ensure the customer’s decision makers will attend (and reschedule if they can’t) 2. The First Meeting The goal of an initial meeting is to help both parties get to know one another and make sure your plan spells success for the customer. Make your 昀椀rst meeting a big success: • Ask questions and clarify pain points. Remember to ask questions that are relevant to your o昀昀ering. Share relevant and similar pains that you’ve helped eliminate for similar company types. • Understand needs and de昀椀ne budget. Clarify the customer’s actual needs and budget BONUS as it relates to your o昀昀ering. TIP! • Reinforce how your o昀昀ering meets their needs. Ensure that you can clearly articulate what you can do by illustrating outcomes. Follow up with meeting notes and next steps. • Assess the customer’s environment. Take the time to fully assess the customer’s environment, documenting information about all networks, servers, PCs, applications, and other tech areas. Using a variety of MSP tools can help with automated discovery. • Follow up. Keep communication ongoing, especially after every major milestone in your process. Make sure deliverables and outcomes match up with customer expectations. 3. The Findings and Recommendation Meeting The importance of this next meeting is to make sure that you can document what you will do—and how you will support it. This is where you share your QBR process. Take your time to explain everything that you discovered and documented. This is the moment you could win or lose the deal. This is when you focus on building trust and having strategic business conversations about the why you. 16