Managed Service Providers and Customer Success

Hillary Feldt

Hello Everyone! 

My role in Customer Success I feel is a bit different than others. Customer Success is huge in the SaaS industry, but I'm not able to find a ton of content around best practices and development of Customer Success within the MSP/Services space. I'm hoping that reaching out to this community, there are others like me out there that could share what they're doing today and what's been success for them and their customer base. Some of these may overlap with what CSM's do in the SaaS space but below are just a couple items I'm hoping to get further insight on. 

• How do you measure value around service offerings?
• What are your KPI's? 
• Ratio of customers to CSM 
• Quarterly Business Review/Quarterly Service Review framework/content 
  • Does every customer get one or is it based on contract size/value/other measurements?
• Health scoring -What do you pull in for this?
• Monetizing Customer Success -Is this built into contract? Wha'ts the going rate?

Thanks all for reading and appreciate any feedback! 

Ed Powers

Hi Hillary--

I have spent several years working in Customer Success with both SaaS companies and MSPs, including a recent VP Client Success role at a data protection MSP, and I've found that while there are some differences, the basic concepts still apply.

On the plus side, MSPs tend to me more focused on customer outcomes than SaaS companies. MSPs I've worked with sell solutions, not products. As service providers, they're more technology agnostic and typically combine 'best in breed' technologies to solve a problem. As a result, they are better at understanding the customer's processes and financial results that come from them, 

On the negative side, MSPs tend to lack insights into product usage that SaaS companies have at their fingertips. Few have access to CS platforms like ChurnZero or Totango. These insights add important dimensions and provide a richer set of data for managing risk. Your questions point to this challenge and rest assured, you're not alone. However, SaaS metrics such as TTFV, CSAT (and earned Trust in particular), and achievement of customer goals all apply for MSPs. 

Rather than add to an already lengthy post, I'm happy to share more details directly. Connect to me on LinkedIn or shoot me a note to ed@se-partners.com and let's set up a time to talk further. 

Ed