How MSPs Can Respond To A Client's Unexpected Business Growth

By Adam Simpson, CEO of Easy Office Phone

Ah, unexpected growth. It’s a wonderful problem for most businesses, but if you were to ask the MSP (managed services providers) and IT providers supporting those companies, the perspective might be a little different. Here are some tips you can follow now to minimize growing pains when your client experiences an unexpected (but welcome) surge of business.  

First, seek out services offering instant scalability that you can easily manage on your clients’ behalf. Using cloud-based phone service as an example, you’ll want to have your client on a plan that allows you to add capacity for more phone lines at a moment’s notice. There’s generally no reason you can’t do this directly online, when logged into the account and authenticated as an admin. That should be sufficient — avoid services that require a lengthy order process. At most, for larger or more complex accounts, you may need to contact the sales rep who looks after your client, but the turnaround on the service item addition should still be no more than one business day. 

Once you’ve chosen vendors, get a direct line to the contact who can make things happen for you when push comes to shove. This may still be the initial sales rep, but could also be an account manager or someone with a similar title. During a growth surge, no matter how organized you are as an MSP, or how streamlined the provider’s online ordering process is, there will inevitably come that moment when you realize your client needs something unusual that doesn’t “fit the mold ” — and they’ll need it quickly. When that happens (not if), it’s critical to have a relationship with someone in the vendor’s organization who can occasionally bend the rules a bit and sidestep typical process in the interest of client satisfaction.

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