Focusing on the MSP Customer Experience

A management trend that seems to be taking the world by storm these days is the appointment of a chief customer officer. The basic idea is that rather than leaving customers to their own devices when it comes to engaging with products and services, some thought should be given to creating an actual experience that results in more of those products and services being consumed.

At the root of those efforts is the assumption that a more satisfied customer is by definition a more profitable customer. Now Kaseya is trying to extend that concept out to its managed service provider (MSP) partners by naming Alex Cuevas to the newly created position of chief customer officer.

Newly appointed Kaseya CEO Fred Voccola says the immediate goal is to help MSPs that rely on the company’s MSP platform make better use of the millions of dollars that Kaseya invests in developing its platform. To that end, the company will make sure that every MSP has a single point of contact at Kaseya.

Perhaps the more interesting question that ensues from that development is the degree to which MSPs will extend the same concept out to their customers. In theory at least, if Kaseya is providing each MSP with a single point of contact, it stands to reason that MSPs could extend that concept out to their own customers.

There’s no doubt that more than a few MSPs have already embraced this concept. But for the majority that have not, now may be the time to consider it.

The simple fact of the matter is that MSPs have penetrated less than 20 percent of the overall IT market. A big reason for that is many organizations feel they will get better service from an internal IT organization that they directly control. The issue isn’t so much the cost or the quality of the IT services being delivered, but rather the amount of hand-holding they receive.

Naturally, offering customers a single point of contact might drive up the MSP’s costs in the short term. But the payback in terms of increased consumption of managed services should make the effort well worth the cost of providing that enhanced customer experience.