MSPs are trying to figure out how to offer additional value to their clients, as more businesses make the leap to the cloud. Quite often MSPs find themselves trying to be the middle-man between their client and several different cloud services -- particularly Office 365. It can be difficult to sell business owners a premium cost for subscription services they can likely sign up for themselves.
Jeff Farris, president of Azurative, knew this problem all too well when he was running an MSP. Now, he's striving to address that challenge with a new offering called CloudRadial. Farris essentially created the product because he was frustrated trying to integrate Office 365 into his existing managed service offerings.
The cloud-based solution offers account management for MSPs and Microsoft Cloud Solution Providers (CSP); the offering also integrates with ConnectWise Manage and Microsoft Office 365.
CloudRadial brings together a variety of client-focused tools that allow MSPs to deliver their own white-labeled cloud application for customers. Through CloudRadial MSPs can increase revenue, reduce support costs and improve customer relationships, the company claims.
CloudRadial: How can it increase revenue?
There are six ways CloudRadial can help MSPs leverage Office 365 to create more revenue for the company, Azurative asserts:
- Ease of purchase - Through CloudRadial's service catalog, clients can choose higher value projects and services from your company.
- Show need - CloudRadial offers real-time reports that can help create a sense of urgency for clients and show them where security may be lacking
- Data governance - Demonstrate the value of enhanced data governance and help clients keep their data within their control through CloudRadial’s data protection policies and reports.
- Offer Add-ons - There are several Office 365 add-ons that can offer value to your clients that extend voice and security capabilities, you can show the value of these additional products through CloudRadial's integrated Office 365 reporting.
- Deliver compliance services - Additional compliance services including CloudRadial’s features for archiving, training, and policy monitoring can be included in offerings to bring more value to your client's Office 365 subscription, justifying a higher cost through your company.
- Set a clear service scope - You can draw a clear line in the sand to define what services are included in your client's subscriptions and use the CloudRadial service portal to prompt end users for upgrades, projects, and new recurring revenue streams.
CloudRadial: How does it reduce support costs?
- Automatic Knowledge Base - CloudRadial’s knowledge base with content subscriptions can automatically keep your Office 365 content up-to-date. It can also be personalized with relevant content for your clients so they can use it internally as well to address their own needs.
- Human Firewall Training - CloudRadial offers courses clients can use to keep all end users up to date with the latest cybersecurity best practices to help avoid costly breaches.
- PSA Syncing - Use CloudRadial’s problem and service request features to predefine problems and their routing, and sync those back to Connectwise to pre-categorize the tickets and get them to the right team and pre-approved without further interaction.
Improving Customer Relationships?
Most clients and users don't want to login to multiple platforms and remember various passwords and login locations. Providing them with a branded landing page can help create strong ties between your company and the client. Through CloudRadial, you can offer a white-labeled portal that will give them access to everything they need to manage their account, without giving them access to things they don't need and could get them into trouble.
You can also create a single portal for other applications through CloudRadial's application launcher. Providing this single portal can be a huge value-add to clients looking to simplify their cloud solutions. By directing them to your portal can also reinforce that brand awareness and create a stronger bond between your company and the end users.
IT infrastructure is changing rapidly. MSPs that are able to leverage these changes and offer value on top of the services third parties are providing will continue to be successful.