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As an MSP owner, it may be tempting to block out the world of managed print.
Many within the MSP community view print management as a thorn in their side and want to avoid it completely to focus on their IT support.
But the truth is, ignoring print can cost your business a fortune in lost revenue.
Print Partner specializes in providing print solutions for clients of hundreds of MSP partners across the country. We take the burden of print off of your shoulders so that you won’t have to worry about losing revenue to print ignorance.
In this article, we’re tackling the risks involved when your MSP ignores print, as well as easy, effective solutions to preventing and minimizing print-related revenue losses.
Losing MSP Deals without Managed Print
Competing against fellow MSPs is tough, especially when your service suites can be nearly identical.
When your prospects are shopping around for MSP providers, they may be overwhelmed by the dozens of available candidates, and they may have trouble deciding on one when they all offer identical network support, data security, BDR, etc.
How many sales have fallen through the cracks because a competitor had one small thing over your MSP? One tiny feather in their cap that made them more appealing to the prospect, which won them the sale?
As an MSP, you want any possible drop of value that can give you the edge against other IT companies. And that edge could be print.
Having the confidence that you can refer your clients to your preferred print vendor, along with offering your traditional MSP service suite, gives your sales pitch a one-two punch, elevating your status from an MSP to a technology advisor.
All this, without the hassle of providing or selling the print service) yourself.
So team up with a print vendor and tip the scales in your favor. After all, can you afford to ignore print?
To learn more about incorporating Print Partner into your sales process, read: How to Win Business with Print Partner
Random Print Vendors Poaching Current Clients
You should know who provides print services for your clients, especially when many providers are direct competitors to your MSP.
If you don’t have any stakes in your clients’ print, you are leaving your business wide open for print vendors to steal clients from you.
Stop letting the fox in the hen house!
These “print poachers” can pose a threat to your business long after the initial sale.
Understand that managed print vendors are SALES organizations, whereas most MSPs are SERVICE organizations… In other words, print vendors are trying to sell and upsell at every opportunity.
Print vendors regularly check in with their clients at QBRs, and each meeting presents an opportunity to sell your client their IT services.
MSPs that don’t offer print and don’t work with a preferred vendor are at the mercy of random vendors they have no control over. Many of these print vendors offer MSP services in some form and are waiting for the chance to strike at taking your clients away.
When your client’s print vendor hears a pain point, they will swoop in and pitch their MSP package.
It is essential that you protect your prospects and your existing clients with a preferred print vendor that does not offer its own IT suite.
Print Partner does not have an MSP offering (never will), and one of our primary goals is to protect your MSP from random vendors that do.
So when looking for a preferred print vendor, make sure you find one that does not compete with you and, instead, has your back.
Poor MSP Client Retention
After successfully onboarding a new client, you want to provide them with the best quality service possible to keep their business.
For many companies that rely heavily on efficient document workflow, their print device suite is the organization's backbone. And when copiers and printers malfunction, both MSPs and print vendors may have to get involved.
Support requests are often the most stressful part of the MSP-client relationship, since they often pop up when a client is in trouble. For businesses that rely on a constant flow of printing, having a dysfunctional machine can slow or halt an entire business’ operation, costing them hundreds to thousands of dollars.
Because support requests can feel life-or-death to business owners (or their admins!), you need to work with a reliable print vendor that can collaborate with you and your client to solve the issue, ideally during the first call.
If your client’s print vendor is noncommunicative or slow in responding to a crisis, this will reflect poorly on your client.
When left high and dry, the client will likely start shopping around for a new print vendor after a poorly-managed crisis. This is risky business akin to letting the fox into the henhouse since so many print vendors also offer MSP services that compete with you.
Even if the issues aren’t your fault, badly managed print support can damage your business relationships and customer retention.
To read tips for increasing your client retention, read: Top 4 Tips to Retaining Your MSP’s Clients
Managed Print and Higher MSP Workload
Let’s clear the air: Third-party print devices are not your devices to support!
When your customer establishes a relationship with a managed print services vendor, support for those devices falls under that vendor’s umbrella. While MSP-MPS collaboration may be essential for some networking issues, print support is ultimately not your problem.
But if your MSP is fumbling to coordinate support requests with your client’s MPS vendor, it may cost you something perhaps even more precious than money: time.
While it’s true that MSPs can sometimes smooth out and help your clients with their print devices, especially for quick fixes, the print vendor should handle anything beyond a simple troubleshooting call.
However, if your clients work with low-quality print vendors, they will call you to solve their print issues.
Unfortunately, vendors unloading print support onto MSPs is a common trend in the industry. Many print vendors talk about support during the sales cycle, but once it comes to onboarding, very little training is done to outline print processes clearly.
Only a handful of people are adequately trained by the installer minutes before they head out the door to another installation.
You probably don’t want your MSP’s staff to be bogged down by the additional labor and monumental headaches caused by print support requests. The additional workload could burn technicians out and cause your support tickets to pile up.
Join forces with a print partner that won’t waste your time.
Missing Out on Referral Program for MSP
If you’re not working with a print partner, you may miss out on a significant referral revenue stream.
Some print vendors offer bonuses for prospective client introductions, Print Partner being one of them.
For Print Partner, specifically, we pay our partners in three different ways.
First, we pay $250 to our MSP partners for each referral and an additional $250 if we receive a copy of the prospect’s current print agreement. Regardless of whether or not we seal the deal, you will get paid.
Later, if we do make the sale, we pay our MSP partners $1,000 per copier sold.
For example, if an MSP introduces us to a law firm that needs three copiers and we win the deal, that MSP earns $3,000.
After the client is onboarded, our referral partners receive 5% of the lifetime print allotment across all customers they have introduced to us. Partners that have closed deals can continue receiving compensation for years after the initial introduction.
Also, if the client needs new machines in the future, you’ll still get paid $1,000 on each copier sold and 5% on their print allotment, even if the sale happens years after the initial introduction.
Even just making a handful of sales can create a significant revenue stream for your company,
ignoring print could be costing your business a big opportunity.
Servicing Clients with Print Partner
Managed print, love it or hate it, is a service many businesses need and can benefit from. And if you ignore print, it could cost your MSP a nice chunk of change.
Without a print solution, prospecting is an uphill battle, client retention is a gamble, your staff’s time is wasted on print support calls, and you miss out on referral bonuses.
If you’re looking for an easy solution to your print blindspot, Print Partner has your back.
Simply refer your clients to us, and we handle the rest. Once you make the introduction, we take complete ownership of the account, handling the sales process from start to finish while we make you look good.
And once the sale is complete, we collaborate with you to provide quality print service and support to your clients while protecting you from random print vendors operating in your space.
So consider partnering with us, a Print Partner you can trust.
