There are a handful of things we do that truly define our business and separate us from other IT providers. One is our
monthly maintenance process. Another is our Quarterly Roadmap Meetings.
Roadmap meetings actually start with prospects before them become clients. Many of the questions are the same. Basically, you want to get a sense where the client's business is today and where they expect to be in the next year or so. If you can, you should try to find out where they hope to be in five years.
Basically, the Roadmap is a rough plan for the client's technology "department" (even though most do not have such a department). The Roadmap meeting is an opportunity to sit down with the client and talk about their future.
Three Benefits of Quarterly Roadmap Meetings
First: We use our Roadmap questionnaire to get to know clients and help assess their technology. In my opinion, this is far superior to an assessment of technology alone. Once we know what the company wants to do, we can determine whether they have the right technology now, and what they will need in the future.
Second: For existing clients, these regular meetings provide a non-salesy discussion of their technology so we can really participate as a member of their team. This helps us stay connected to the client on a casual level when we're not addressing a service request.
Third: As the clients plan their technology spending, we can plan our sales. It's very nice to know when projects are coming up and when we will be selling servers, workstations, etc.
What We Talk About
Is the client growing or shrinking? How dependent are they on technology? Do they have a budget? Do they have a technology budget? It is quite amazing how easy it is to get clients to tell your their plans, hopes, and dreams. We've gotten responses like these:
"We're having financial problems and need to cut back."
"We're going to add three more people this year."
"We have $3 Million in revenue and expect it to be $3.5M within 18 months."
This is great stuff. You get this stuff by asking.
But you can't casually ask. You need to have a process and procedure in which 1) They've agreed to participate, and 2) These are just a few questions in a longer list.
We use our own "Roadmap" process, but many of the questions are either similar to, or taken from the original Microsoft Business and Technology Assessment Toolkit. The best place to get this is from an old MSDN or Technet CD from at least five years ago. That's because the assessment was just a Word doc and was easy to customize.
The current version is at
https://www.msbtat.com/. It requires InfoPath and is convoluted and a pain in the neck to use. Note that this is not the same as the Microsoft Assessment and Planning Toolkit, which is for evaluating client technology so you can give advice on upgrades and migrations.
We print out our questions on blue paper with a cover sheet so it looks like a set of forms. That way prospects and clients see that there really is a standardized process here.
When clients are growing, you can give them the big heads up that technology spending will increase. No "sales" necessary. Just say things like "You know you can't add three people and all their data in that old server. So you don't need it today, but you know you will."
There's no sales here, so they'll just nod their head and say "I know, I know."
But not everyone is growing. In this recession we have had to help several clients manage the shrinking of their business. That includes using the best machines as some machines are taken out of service. In two cases it meant helping the clients shut down their physical office and move to virtual offices (and to the cloud). In one case, we managed technology as our client was purchased by their competition.
Our company provides free planning meetings for our clients under contract. Our definition of "managed services" focuses heavily on being the outsourced I.T. department for our clients. As such, we try to help develop the budget, the policies, and the 1-, 3-, and 5-year plans for the "I.T. Department." Basically, if they have a big business plan or binder, we provide the I.T. section that slips into place.
Here are some examples of activities we promote through Roadmap meetings:
- Some clients buy whatever brand of computers and equipment is the cheapest. We help them see the longer-term savings of standardization for PCs, monitors, UPSs, etc. This is a gradual change over time.
- For some clients, open licenses make the most sense. For many small businesses, OEM licenses make more sense. We help clients gradually move to the right licensing programs as technology refreshes.
- Clients always have concerns about upgrades - servers and workstations. So again we help them create a plan so that decisions are mostly made when a machine needs to be ordered.
As you can see, all of these decisions are interrelated. And they all involve lots of money and labor. And timing matters. MOST small businesses make these decisions one at a time, trying to save the most money on each purchase. The result is that they spend more money as time goes on.
And we don't push upgrades just to push upgrades. If Microsoft gave these folks everything they wanted for free, they would still have the costs of our labor plus downtime per desktop and potential downtime for servers just to install it all. So we don't push every update that comes down the road.
Scheduling Meetings
We call these "Quarterly" Roadmap Meetings. But that almost never happens. Basically, we schedule them with all clients. Our office manager knows that Mike and I have certain slots open in our calendar, so she can fill those with Roadmap meetings and know they won't conflict with anything else. It also means that we spread out the meetings so we're not taken off of tech support or other tasks for large chunks of the week.
Once we've completed a round of Roadmap Meetings, she starts scheduling them again. Some clients delay and delay. So overall, most clients end up having 1-3 meetings a year. And of those, most are 1-2 meetings a year. But that's enough. It keeps us in touch and keeps the conversation going.
Meetings are generally one or two hours. This is not a time to address individual service ticket issues, but it IS a time to discuss service overall. If clients have concerns about nagging issues or overall service, this is a great opportunity for them to bring that up.
Summary of Benefits:
- Better customer relationships
- Clients understand our philosophies about technology and upgrades
- More consistency in ordering and choice of equipment
- Higher sales overall
- Happier clients
If you aren't doing "roadmap" meetings with clients, I highly recommend that you start soon.
Comments welcome.
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About this Series
SOP Friday - or Standard Operating System Friday - is a series dedicated to helping small computer consulting firms develop the right processes and procedures to create a successful and profitable consulting business.
Find out more about the series, and view the complete "table of contents" for SOP Friday at
SmallBizThoughts.com.
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Next week's topic: Outsourcing (some) of Your Monthly Maintenance
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