5 Reasons Why Client Reporting is Crucial for a Managed Service Provider

Client reporting is a crucial part of being a managed service provider. You may feel that these daily health check reports that you send out to clients are insignificant, especially when nothing significant is going on. However, these regular reports serve a higher purpose than just sending out something with a bunch of graphs and numbers.

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What is Client Reporting?

Before we dive into the reasons why client reporting is essential, let us define it first. Client reporting refers to the process of sending regular reports about the health of the IT infrastructure, network and systems, and other IT assets of the customer. It is also why most providers call it health check reports.
It includes the key performance metrics that you and the client agreed to as part of your service level agreement. Aside from giving your clients an idea about the status of their IT services, it can also be used to evaluate your performance as a managed service provider.

Now, let us go back to why it is essential to send your clients regular health check reports:

• It helps your client-provider relationship

Like weddings, the key to a happy client-provider relationship is good communication. Your regular health fitness check reports can serve as a starting point for more interactions with your clients. It allows you to start a conversation with your client to discuss areas of improvement based on the data that your regular reporting shows.

Besides, regular interactions make the relationship more personal. It will make it easier to keep them as loyal customers. So, make it a point to reach out to your customers and get to know them on a more personal level. Let them know that you always have their back, and you are always on top of things.

• It helps your client be more familiar with the work you are doing

Regular client reports are also an excellent opportunity to educate your clients about what it takes to ensure that their IT services are always up and running. Explain to them the different key performance metrics and how they can affect the performance of the entire IT infrastructure MSP.

This way, your client will have a deeper appreciation of the work you do because they understand what they are looking at when they look at the reports you send in.

• It Promotes Better Accountability

It is really where regular client reporting comes in. By having concrete KPIs that both you and your client have agreed to, the client reports will show if the metrics are met or not objectively system.

Client reports are a data-driven overview of the status of the network and other IT services of the client. If something goes wrong, you and the client can backtrack to the source of the problem.  From there, you can determine if there were shortcomings or negligence on your part, or if you have taken the necessary steps to prevent future troubles.

• It Establishes Trust

As a managed service provider, your business is built on trust. After all, private companies are entrusting their network, systems, applications, software, and data to you even if you are not part of their business. As far as they are concerned, you are just a vendor. A vendor who has power over their IT assets.

It is a scary power to wield. That is why earning your client’s trust is important. You have to show that you only have their best interest in mind.

Client reporting helps you achieve that. By being legitimate about everything, even the negative things, you’re showing that you have nothing to hide. It also shows that you are proactive in your approach, not only in maintaining your client’s IT assets but also in protecting them.

• It Shows Results

You can build trust, and you can improve customer relationships all you want but, in the end, all that matters are results.

Those are things that cannot be explained by rhetoric. It has to be substantial data-driven numbers. And your client reports will do that.

Again, it will show the status of your IT assets, including the threats, bugs, and all the other issues that you encountered and resolved for your client.

Also, it has the KPIs from your service-level agreement, which will measure the effectiveness of your service.

Client Reporting as Part of the Job

All these go to show that client reporting is a crucial part of your job as a managed service provider. thinkIT Solutions thrive on looking at client reporting not as a burden, but an opportunity to show our clients the level of excellence we have for ourselves.

By showing the client how we keep their IT administrations reliable and secure, we are persistently proving that they made the correct choice.