How important is customer satisfaction to a solution provider's business? Duke Burge, founder and president of Texasbased Computer Solutions, Inc., sums it up when he says, "If you are in business and you want to stay in business, there's only one answer: It's your No. 1 priority."

Good advice for all times, as new customers have always been more costly to sell to than existing ones, and satisfied customers lead to word-of-mouth advertising. But the economic downturn brings customer satisfaction into even sharper focus.

Sales cycles tend to lengthen in a downturn and it costs more to acquire new clients. In addition, the economy can make struggling competitors more aggressive in poaching your customers. "That's why in a downturn it's so important to focus on customer retention," says Kendra Lee, president of sales consultancy KLA Group. "You need to build a brick wall around customers and make sure they love you."

"In a down economy it pays to focus on retaining customers," agrees Peter DiMarco, vice president and general manager of VAR sales, Ingram Micro North America. "That can make a big difference for solution providers over the next six to 12 months."

How to succeed in satisfying and retaining customers is the subject of this article. Through the perspective of consultants, industry experts and successful solution providers, we'll explore customer satisfaction and the business processes that bake it into everyday operations. We'll touch on assessing customer satisfaction and suggest methods for improving it --all aimed at helping your company raise customer retention to the highest of strategic initiatives.

Establishing Value
Customer satisfaction touches every aspect of a solution provider's operations. Christine McMahon, president of management consultancy CMA, breaks it down into three segments --the sales process, products and services, and the customer relationship after the sale.

"The sales process accounts for 40 percent of a customer's decision to do business with you," says McMahon. "Your products and services account for 30 percent --are you offering a solution that truly addresses business needs? The final 30 percent happens after the sale --how does your company engage with the customer after the invoice is paid?

"If they call and it takes 10 minutes to find the right person, they won't want to do business with you because you cost them productivity," she says. "And every level of the organization has to be responsive, with a mind-set that asks, ?How can I help to improve the customer's business situation?' That's key to establishing value."

"Our most successful partners address customers' business challenges by providing a complete solution that includes products and a supporting services strategy," says Marc Moro, channel services manager for Ingram Micro at Cisco Systems. "The customers' perception of value leads to repeat business."

This connection between business value and satisfied customers resonates with solution providers of every type. Computer Solutions Inc., for instance, provides walk-in computer repair, on-site service for very small companies and web-based product sales with drop-shipping. "For customers to be satisfied, you have to separate them from their money, but they also have to be happy they made the exchange," says Burge. "They have to see the value in what you're doing."

Burge's largest online customer, for instance, previously did business with Dell but became disillusioned with the service. Burge switched the customer to Hewlett-Packard and ensured more personalized service. "I told the customer, ?Here's our web site, we'll ship the same day you place your order, and here's my cell phone number,' " says Burge. "They can call me."

And call they do. Burge tells how one day at 10 minutes to 5 p.m. (Central time), the head of the customer's IT department called after two switches failed in its Dallas office, taking the whole company offline. Burge placed the order with Ingram Micro, but when the customer arrived at the will-call window a few minutes past 5 p.m., the door was locked. Burge got through to someone at Ingram Micro and a woman walked the length of the warehouse to open the door. They caught a stocker on his way out who pulled the order and by 5:14 p.m. the switches were in hand. "Who else would have done that for a customer?" Burge asks.

At Integrity Networks, a provider of managed services and Cisco unified communications solutions, the managed services business is strong because customers like the value of predictable, fixed-cost contracts. To establish further value in the customers' eyes, says CEO Ben Rife, Integrity engages with them for "virtual CIO" meetings to understand their business goals and recommend a long-term technology strategy.

"The companies we work with typically don't have the resources to hire a CIO," says Rife. "If we can meet with them to lay out a technology road map, it deepens the relationship while increasing customer satisfaction." At such meetings Rife and his team use reports from the remote monitoring system to show security threats avoided, downtime averted and other value delivered. "Often the customer has no idea of the work we've done," he says. "The virtual CIO meetings are paramount to retaining customers because they justify our existence."

Another perspective comes from Nick Bock of Five Nines Technology Group, which focuses less on fixed-fee managed services and more on customized client engagements. The company aims to deliver value through a hybrid of proactive monitoring and maintenance, time-and-materials IT support, consulting and projects that emphasize on-site interactions and close customer contact. Regular face-to-face encounters "are a huge part of us engaging with customers," says CEO Bock.

"For many MSPs, a fixed-rate contract means keeping clients at arm's length, using help desks and escalation paths to engage with clients," says Bock. "The value-based scenario we provide holds us accountable for the work we do. Our clients are able to see the return on their investment with us." The approach seems to be working: In the two years Five Nines has been in business, it has retained more than 98 percent of its customers.

The Personal Touch
To ensure satisfaction and root out any problems, the company engages with customers in three ways: through a primary engineer, a salesperson and a technical consulting team led by Bock and other managers. "We don't want just one person managing the relationship because clients voice feedback to different people," says Bock.

Unlike at some MSPs where a team of engineers handles each account, at Five Nines a primary engineer owns the environment --"just that fact alone helps establish a close customer relationship," Bock says. The salesperson who brought in the customer stays on the account, working closely with the engineer to scope out new solutions and ensure satisfaction. The technical consulting team gives customers a third avenue to ask questions and, perhaps, offer feedback about engineering and sales. "Our goal," says Bock, "is to have as many touches with the customer as possible."

RIATA Technologies, an MSP in Texas, also works to maximize personal touches, despite relying heavily on remote monitoring and management. Every account is assigned a dedicated network consultant who visits customers regularly "whether they need it or not," says CEO Tommy Wald. To ensure continuity of service if the engineer were to leave or be reassigned, RIATA creates extensive documentation about the customer's IT environment in the professional services automation (PSA) system. Documentation goes beyond hardware and software to include information about the client's ISP and web address, e-mail naming conventions, directory structure and more --"everything we need to know if we have to drop a new engineer into an account," says Wald.

In addition, RIATA has split its help desk of 10 employees into two groups, each serving a subset of clients. Working with fewer clients enables help-desk staff to become more knowledgeable and to form more personal relationships with those who call.

How're We Doing?
Processes at RIATA such as documenting the IT environment and splitting the help desk came about in response to problems with customer satisfaction. "Previously the engineer held everything in his head about the client, and if he left we had to send someone to figure out what they had," says Wald. "But the customer thinks everyone in our company should know everything about its business. Or every time they call the help desk, they get upset if the person answering doesn't know them or their business. So we got a number of complaints."

Like most solution providers, Wald uses complaints to assess customer satisfaction and has developed several ways of managing them. Every complaint gets copied to a "feedback" e-mail repository for collection and evaluation. The executive team periodically reviews the contents to discover customer satisfaction trends that must be addressed.

Wald also personally surveys customers to assess how satisfied they are. "I think it's important for the owners of a company to stay closely connected with existing clients," he says. "Usually I make a handful of courtesy calls each month to our clients, asking for candid feedback on how we're doing and what we can do better. It helps establish where I as CEO need to focus my attention to improve our processes and increase customer satisfaction."

Other solution providers use more formal surveys to assess satisfaction levels. Manufacturers such as Cisco may require that partners survey their customers to remain in good standing. This provides valuable, if anonymous, feedback, says Rife of Integrity Networks. "Customers rate us on a scale of 1 to 5, and Cisco requires a score of 4 or better," he says. "Right now we're running 4.9. If we miss the bar, we know we have work to do."

Another approach involves periodically surveying customers after service engagements. That's the policy at Computer Solutions Inc., where the company contracts with Ingram Micro Seismic for the Autotask-hosted PSA system. Autotask automatically generates an e-mail every time an engineer closes a service ticket, listing the reason for the call, the service performed and how long it took, as well as the following message:

If this service call has not been resolved to your satisfaction, please respond to this e-mail and we will continue to work on it. If we don't hear from you in two business days, we'll go ahead and complete the invoice. We can always reopen it at any time. We're sorry for any inconvenience this issue may have caused you and your co-workers and appreciate your patience while we took time to address it. As always, thank you for the opportunity to continue to earn your business. Sincerely, Duke Burge, CEO, Computer Solutions Inc.

After a number of service calls, Computer Solutions Inc.generates a customer satisfaction survey through Survey Monkey, an online service provider, which the customer can answer anonymously. "The Autotask message gives the customer a nice touch from us, but Survey Monkey gives them an opportunity to rate our service and to say if they'd recommend us," says Burge. "If there's a problem, we're still small enough that I can personally deal with it."

Smoothing Things Over
In whatever form negative feedback comes to their attention, savvy solution providers see it as positive. "We really embrace such opportunities because we have a chance to illustrate a level of communication that most IT providers are uncomfortable with," says Bock of Five Nines.

He starts with addressing the specific complaint, of course.He also thanks the customer for the feedback and makes it clear how much he values the customer's business. Then the technical consulting team follows up to ensure that everything's going smoothly. "If the problem was the work we performed, we apologize and correct it. But maybe expectations weren't set correctly," says Bock. "In that case we very carefully and tenderly try to adjust those expectations. We follow up later to ensure the original complaint was resolved and hasn't become a sore spot."

Adjusting client expectations is a critical skill in problem resolution, experts say --because in truth, the customer isn't always right. "Whenever you get feedback, you need to circle back to tell the client what you've chosen to respond to and what not," says consultant Lee. "You need to consider, ?How can I position this best so the client will understand the business choice we've made?' "

As an example, say a customer wants a two-hour response time and your standard is four hours. Two hours might be wrong for your business because of your geographic coverage or the availability of parts. "Instead of simply saying ?no,' it would be better to explain that you could respond in two hours," says Lee, "but that the cost would be prohibitive and the client would be overpaying for that level of service."

Sometimes, however, you have to just to walk away. "One customer begged us to charge a rate much below what we charge other clients with fewer headaches," says Rife of Integrity Networks. "We decided to part ways with that client, although we suggested some competitors they could do business with."

Keep the Dialogue Going
If conscientious communication helps to resolve problems, it's also key to preventing them. "When I'm engaging our sales force, I always tell them to go to the client and fall on the sword," says Rife. "Admit that we're not perfect and find out what we can do better.

"Even if we don't have an immediate solution to their problem today, we let customers know they are a top priority and that we're working on it," continues Rife. "Same with a proposal. We're constantly communicating to tell them we're working to hit the deadline. Customers feel comfortable knowing that we haven't forgotten about them."

Burge extends this idea to his technical staff as well. "The outside technicians typically make four to five calls a day, and there's always the chance they're not going to make the last call," he says. "If customers have received two or three calls from the tech that day updating the status and he doesn't make it, they don't get mad. If he never calls they're annoyed."

A similar situation arises when technical staff are working on the bench at the office. Engineers like to keep going until a problem is solved, notes Burge, but customers appreciate a simple call explaining the status. "To me, that's one of the huge things," says Burge, "Stay in contact with customers, never leave them in the dark."

And don't forget to ask the right questions: "Few things are as helpful as sitting down with customers and discussing their environment and the things they want to do in the future," says Bock. "If there are concerns, such discussions will almost certainly flush them out. After all, they're not likely to discuss the future with you if they don't plan on having one."