IT Service Agreements: When To Offer Them

Right after emergency service calls is a good time to offer IT service agreements. You’ve just saved the day and you’re at the high point. Customers have to like, know, and trust you. After an emergency, they love you! They love you because you saved the day; they now know you of course because you just spent the last 16 hours working non-stop to solve this problem; and of course they trust you because you delivered on what you said you could do. Future Damage Control Once you fix an emergency, they’re very receptive to talking about how to prevent this kind of panic from happening in the future. Then you can give them a proposal that will include the ongoing maintenance by your company in the form of IT service agreements. So that’s a great time to ask for the service contract. Offer IT Service Agreements after Conducting IT Audits After IT audits, customers are wondering what do to next. If they have agreed to an audit, they are more than likely looking for someone that they can call on a regular basis. They want someone who’s going to look out for their needs, who’s going to take a long-term approach to making sure that everything they’re buying fits well with their existing investments, and that it makes sense for their business and fits in with different things going on in their industry. For someone to sign IT service agreements, they need to be a paying customer of yours. Once they become a paying customer of yours with an IT service agreement, they’re essentially more of a client, because they’re beyond just being a transaction-oriented customer. They’re in it for the long haul, with a long-term client relationship. The Long Range Option Another option is a slightly longer sales cycle that can take anywhere from a couple weeks to a couple months. In this case, your customer realizes that they are not happy with their current technology provider. Perhaps, they’re not delivering as promised; the response time is starting to slack off; they feel they’re padding the bills; there’s personality conflicts; or changes in priorities. A lot of different things can happen and they’re actively shopping for a new consulting firm, a new technology provider to work with. In those cases, usually the natural step is after you’ve walked out and you have tons and tons of notes and lots of things is to propose to them that you come back and do IT audits. The IT audit is a great segue into proposing IT service agreements. Copyright MMI-MMVI, Small Business Computer Consulting .com. All Worldwide Rights Reserved. {Attention Publishers: Live hyperlink in author resource box required for copyright compliance}