The overall customer experience is an area most Managed Services Providers (MSP) and channel partners tend to talk about, but is left on the back burner over other sales and project objectives.

With the as-a-service market continuing to grow on historic levels improving customer experience becomes more important considering talent shortages and increasing customer expectations. Global management consulting firm McKinsey & Company in its annual Customer Care Survey reported that, within the next 12 to 24 months, driving a better overall customer experience is a top priority. The McKinsey report said: 

“Customer experience is fast becoming a key competitive area. Companies that don’t prioritize their strategy and digital transformation journeys are likely to face continued customer dissatisfaction, as well as talent attrition—thus threatening their brand and market competitiveness.”

In the Jolera Interview Series, Jolera Chief Revenue Officer Chris Black was not surprised that customer experience was a top priority for 2022 and beyond.

Black said the Corona Virus pandemic and lockdowns produced a massive shift and forced organizations large and small to get their customer experience levels into high gear.

But there’s also a bit of a disconnect in the market where executives tend to hold back because they do not wish to get anyone in trouble. 

“Times have changed, and customers no longer are afraid to voice their displeasure over a job not done well enough. Customers are taking back the power as more consumerization gets into business, they have no problems or issues saying, ‘I’m not happy with the process’.”, Black said.

Obtaining customer feedback is a positive thing for MSPs and channel partners. According to Chris, with feedback, you can improve and lead to better outcomes for the customer. This shift is occurring in the marketplace now and businesses must learn to be more accountable to the customer via the overall customer experience they provide.

With all these changes in Service Level Agreements (SLA), they had to evolve through digital transformation. Black believes that service providers can do 1,999 things right, but that one thing goes wrong and your MSP operation gets “roasted”.

“Most SLAs have a four-hour response time. Busy executives will say to that ‘if you get back to me in four hours then we have a problem.’ It’s really a big problem. No one has four hours to burn”.

Black suggested that the overall customer experience should begin with immediacy, and operations learn from there to set expectations and meet the desired outcomes.

Watch the Jolera Interview Series on customer experience to learn more about Chris Black’s takes on XLA or experience-level agreements, and how they are taking over from SLAs.

By Paolo Del Nibletto