Gordon Tan, Client Heartbeat founder, believes he is shaking up the industry.

“MSPs now have an industry-specific way to compare their performance against companies of similar size in their city, state or nationally,”

As a business intelligence tool, Client Heartbeat offers so much more than a regular survey tool. Not only does it boast an industry high 60% response rate, but it can identify your customers most at risk. Client Heartbeat’s proprietary algorithm can tell you exactly who is about to cancel their contract, giving MSPs a great opportunity to address any concerns before it’s too late.

What is Client Heartbeat

Client Heartbeat started out as an internal tool used by the company’s founder, Gordon Tan. He was operating a MSP and needed a way to manage customer feedback and trend that feedback from quarter to quarter.

The existing options available were very basic survey systems like Survey Monkey, which really didn’t help him trend feedback across a specific time period.

As a result, Gordon decided to create his own software application.

This internal solution proved a valuable tool in assisting Gordon to grow his MSP after dropping out of university from $0 in revenue to over $3 million in under six years. Other providers started asking about the tool and an opportunity appeared to build a solution for the MSP industry.

As the tool grew and grew, feedback from MSPs assisted with the implementation of benchmarking and testimonial sharing features.

The tool is picking up interest among the industry with Dave Courbanou from Channelnomics writing up an article earlier this week, MSPs Can Check Pulse with Client Heartbeat.

The Client Heartbeat software works by sending automated surveys to MSPs’ customers and analyses the information against other MSPs in the region. This provides a barometer of customer satisfaction while helping MSPs uncover where they need to compete — or where they are already competing well.

How Client Heartbeat works can be best broken down into three main components:

1)   Request and monitor feedback

Upon singing up, MSPs are requested to add their contacts. This can be easily done through uploading a CSV file or entering them manually. Those using Connectwise, simply install the application in Connectwise Marketplace.

After adding contacts, select questions and send out the first customer feedback survey (what Client Heartbeat calls, ‘heartbeats’). Client Heartbeat takes care of all the emailing, including follow up emails after 7 and 14 days to those who haven’t responded.

It’s so easy to add contacts and put customer feedback surveys on autopilot. It only takes setting up once, clients are then emailed every quarter (this can be changed) and a constant stream of feedback and testimonials is received by the MSP. The feedback is then trended across each cycle so MSPs can identify at risk clients and keep an eye on big clients.

2)   Benchmark against the industry

This part involves benchmarking feedback and performance against other MSPs in their region. MSPs can then compare their performance against industry averages and the top performers.

MSPs find this a great way to see how they stack up against competitors. Client Heartbeat clearly identifies the areas the MSP has done well and areas that need improvement.

3)   Attract new leads

The third component strives to help MSPs grow their business. By incorporating a testimonial and sharing feature into the customer feedback surveys, MSPs can leverage their happy customers to generate new business.

In the customer feedback survey, a simple question is asked as the final question: how likely would you be to recommend XYZ company? If the respondent answers very likely, he/she is prompted to leave a testimonial. The respondent can then share their testimonial via LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter. So far 10-15% of respondents share their testimonials.

By using Client Heartbeat and referral marketing, MSPs can generate more, better quality leads on autopilot.

Integration with Connectwise

The integration with ConnectWise is a big win for the MSP industry. MSPs now have a solution to help them get better participation rates in customer feedback surveys, see how they compare to industry top performers and take advantage of social media to improve brand awareness.

The integration has been given a tick of approval by Jeannine Edwards, Director of ConnectWise Community. She said. “Client Heartbeat is an efficient way for ConnectWise partners to augment their efforts to deliver superior service, retain more clients, and earn new business through referrals,”

Jeannine goes on to say,

“Partners will find this tool valuable for gathering information in order to assess their performance, and another way ConnectWise partners can keep a sharp competitive edge in their markets.”

Benefits for MSPs

MSPs using Client Heartbeat can expect to improve their business through business intelligence. With pricing starting from just $25/month, these are five reasons MSPs should sign up today.

1. Start understanding how your performance compares against other MSPs in your region
2. Attract new prospects by enabling clients to share testimonials on social networks.
3. Save time by putting your customer feedback on autopilot
4. Get 60% participation in your customer feedback surveys
5. Receive real intelligence and insight into areas you can improve your business.

This is a sponsored post written by Ross Beard,  the Marketing Manager at Client Heartbeat, responsible for driving customer acquisition and building customer relationships through The Heartbeat Business Blog. He enjoys educating MSPs on best practice business strategies to help them grow their business.

For example, it’s common for SMBs to choose free or inexpensive unmanaged security solutions with the belief that they are, in their standalone form, all that will be needed to protect their organizations against threats.  (This notion is not product-specific; it runs the gamut from AVG Free, to Microsoft Security Essentials, to desktop security products that are available at large retail stores.)  This is particularly true of the “S” in SMBs.

The risks of unmanaged security run far and wide.  Businesses that follow the unmanaged route often find themselves plagued with a plethora of risks and problems related to users reacting incorrectly to pop-ups and prompts coming from their security solution. “I don’t know… Should I remove that threat?  Is it a threat?  Maybe I should just leave it alone so I can get my work done…”  Sounds familiar?

The SMB IT administrator (whether internal or external) has no visibility into what’s happening—and, of even more concern, no control over whether or not a user responds correctly to an alert to a threat or other critical events – such as updates, necessary reboots, etc.

All too frequently, if an antivirus solution is perceived to be creating performance or productivity issues it’s simply uninstalled by the user. Unfortunately, in many cases the workstation they’re using is set up to provide unlimited rights to un-install and install applications and there is no control to prevent it.  Furthermore, when the number of machines in the organization climbs above ten – it’s almost impossible for IT admins to keep track of them manually.

While free and unmanaged solutions provide solid protection for the casual home computer user, it’s a gamble that small businesses should not make.

What business owners can afford to run the risks of data theft or loss, or simply productivity loss due to unavailable systems—all to save an insignificant amount of money in the grand scheme of things?  Very few.  The business impact of having a security breach or stolen customer data is nearly impossible to recover from.

The Channel has a golden opportunity here: to educate their SMB customers on this topic and add value by being the trusted advisor businesses can rely on.  Moreover, there are easy and affordable cloud solutions now available (such as our own AVG CloudCare) that enable the Channel to manage endless customers from one central location with easy-to-access and configure alerts, providing the opportunity to deliver even more value to customers.

Today’s cyber criminals are ruthless, but small businesses no longer need to be their unwitting targets.

This guest post is written by Luke Walling. Luke is the Vice President of Sales and Operations at AVG North America, overseeing all aspects of channel engagement from sales to technical support.  Luke joined AVG in June 2010 through an acquisition of his business, Walling Data, which focused on value-added distribution of products and services to the Channel and to non-competitive end user segments, as well as a locally-focused MSP and Break/Fix business.

With that in mind, here is a list of thirteen opportunities MSPs have in order to offer new services to their existing customers, or to build up new customers. Getting the jump on your competition will be a key part of your success this year and now is the time many of your customers are working on implementing their budget requests. You want to be top of mind with them, so pick the ones you like from this list, and let customers know you are there to help!

1.      Patch Management

Patch management is one of those things everyone wants, everyone needs, but almost no one does well. Whether you want to admin a solution on your customers’ networks, implement a centralized system on yours, or leverage cloud based services like Windows Intune, this is an easy win that should almost sell itself.

2.      BYOD & Mobile Device Management

Between iPad Minis, Nexus 7s, and Surfaces that were under Christmas trees last month, BYOD is going to be something many of your customers will have to deal with whether they want to or not. And as more and more people get smartphones that they want to connect to the company’s email, the benefits far outweigh the costs of letting users get to corporate services from personal devices. But all that still has to be secure and manageable, and most of your customers won’t have a clue how to handle BYOD or MDM. Here’s where you can really shine as that trusted partner, by getting out in front of this so they know you have it covered.

3.      IaaS

The cloud is catching on, and if you can offer IaaS to your customers, they are going to be interested. Whether you set up your own private cloud, or act as a reseller for another solution, this is an easy way for customers to become very dependent upon you, and is another source for that recurring revenue stream.

4.      Multifactor Authentication

Here’s a project that will definitely involve partnering with a provider or acting as a reseller, but will be worth the effort. 2013 may not be the year everyone adopts 2FA, but it will continue to get more and more coverage in the press, and is a great security enhancement you can offer your customers.

5.      Upgrades

2012 has seen upgrades from Microsoft for workstations, servers and the Office suite, and companies are going to be very interested in finally replacing their aging Windows XP machines and 2003 servers. Becoming expert in operating system deployments and application upgrades will enable you to earn business helping customers manage their upgrades.

6.      Antivirus

Nobody is satisfied 100% with their antivirus solutions, and many of your customers probably don’t even manage A/V, relying on each workstation to handle its own updates. If you can provide central management and reporting, you should find a lot of interest from your customers.

7.      Spam filtering

Whether you want to manage on-prem appliances, route all email through systems in your datacenter, or resell and manage cloud-based services, spam and malware filtering of email is something everyone needs, but no one wants to deal with. Here’s a great solution for you to offer.

8.      Email archiving

Here’s an offering that can dovetail nicely with spam filtering, and is another service many of your customers should be interested in. Sell it for the compliance, business continuity, and protection aspects and you should do well with it.

9.      Encryption

Too many, encryption is security, and while you don’t want to encourage this overly simplistic view, consulting on encryption services is another area where the media hype will help you sell. Whole disk encryption of laptops and portable media, backup tape encryption, encryption of data at rest, and ensuring data in transit has the strongest encryption possible are all things you can help your customers with.

10. Vulnerability Scanning

Another offering in your security lineup, vulnerability scanning is something you can offer your customers as a regular, repeating service. Think about monthly or even weekly proactive scans to check for and alert customers, and should any issues be found, add-on professional services to help them remediate.

11. Server Consolidation

P2V is where it’s at, and “doing more with less” is a catchphrase many of your customers are already hearing from their bosses. Whether you want to host virtual machines in your IaaS cloud, offer consulting services for the deployment of VMware or Hyper-V and the associated work to virtualize the environment, or a combination of both, this is a great area where demand should continue to grow.

12. TBD

The world’s most interesting man may test his code in production, but you know better, and that’s probably why it takes so long to patch things or update configurations, or even remediate security vulnerabilities. Getting a test lab up not only will provide you a safe place to test patches and changes before production, it will save you many late nights and even give you a safe place to practice new skills.

13. Managed Services

As much as you want to offer specific services to your customers, helping them to figure out what other services they might want to use, or outsource to an MSP, can be a great value to them. Even if you don’t offer a specific service, if they ask for something and you cannot do it yourself, finding a partner who will keep you involved and set your company up as that trusted partner. You might even leverage that into a reseller relationship so you can offer the services to other customers.

With these 13 for ’13, you have lots of opportunities to improve your offerings, provide more value to your customers, and become that trusted partner that will keep you involved with them for years to come.

Your customers want connected apps.

But as an app provider, how do you build these connections in a meaningful way? How can you be a disruptor in your space and deliver a solution that not only solves a pain point, but also creates new opportunities across a business? At Salesforce.com, we believe that connected apps are the future. We talk to hundreds of partners throughout the year and have identified these 6 key characteristics as critical in developing this next generation of apps in 2013.

1.   Collaboration

Today’s user wants to collaborate within the actual app experience. Going outside the app to connect with other users and processes is inefficient and counterproductive. Collaboration needs to be frictionless and fundamental to what your app does.

2.   Social UX

Likes, shares, @mentions and badges are now a part of everyday life. Fueled by the prevalence of social media, today, people are conditioned to engage with information in new ways. This is driving a new set of requirements for apps based on the user experience. Embracing these social features that users now require, will help boost user adoption and the stickiness for your app. 

3.   Network Effects

Websites like Yelp, Wikipedia and TripAdvisor have harnessed the wisdom of crowds to deliver trusted information that people access (and augment) again and again. What if you could detect the credit worthiness of an account based on a series of repeated data? What if salespeople could identify the best tactic to close a deal based on 10 similar deals that have closed in the year? How can you apply network effects to your app so that it becomes stronger and more impactful as more people use it?

4.   Mobility

If mobile isn’t a core component of your strategy, your days as an app provider are numbered. Users want access to data wherever they go, on any device.   Whether it’s native, HTML5 or hybrid, a mobile first approach to app development is a critical component for staying relevant in business today – plain and simple.

5.   Interoperability

It’s not enough for your app to only address a discrete process. Users want applications that can move a process forward and that carry data seamlessly between departments and employees. Identify where your application ends and another might begin.  If you deliver quotes, who delivers the contract? If you deliver recruiting, what apps manage on-boarding? Leverage these synergies and collaborate with adjacent providers to develop out-of-the-box integrations for the most common business use cases.

6.   Innovation

While this might seem obvious, before building an app, first ask yourself if are you merely adding to a space or are you disrupting it?  What features and functionality are going to create a breakthrough technology? We’ve seen apps built for scuba shops and car washes.  We’ve seen gamification applied to sustainability management.  Continually pushing the innovation envelope with your app development strategy will not only separate you from the pack but also build the foundation for a thriving business in this new app economy.

The demand for this new breed of connected apps is real, and as an app provider or ISV, adopting a combination of these core tenets within your app development strategy will be the key differentiator for rising above the competition. If cloud is the new table stakes, then place your bets on connected apps for 2013.

This is a guest post written by Ron Huddleston Senior Vice President Global ISV & Channel Alliances, Salesforce.com In this position, Ron leads the organization that is responsible for cultivating and managing salesforce.com’s relationships with partners building solutions utilizing salesforce.com technologies, with a focus on supporting cloud computing development efforts on the Force.com platform. This growing partner specialist team has a singular focus on partner success.

Highlights of the SMB research include the following: SMBs have heard about cloud services but do not understand them (31% in the UK and 28% in the US), SMBs think that cloud services are only for large companies (22% in the UK and 17% in the US), SMBs are considering adopting cloud services in the next 12 months (21% in the UK and 20% in the US), SMBs have deployed some form of cloud services (21% in the UK and 25% in the US), SMBs deal with their IT themselves (52% in the UK and 42% in the US), and SMBs fear data breach/loss (18% in the UK and 20% in the US).

Over 95% of SMBs regularly use up to five pieces of technology in their daily work and are therefore dependent on large amounts of technology that increase productivity and efficiency. A large proportion of SMBs, however, spend up to four hours a week on IT and security issues (52% in the UK and 42% in the US). SMBs that already employ cloud services most popularly use sharing/collaboration tools, followed by storage and iPad/mobile apps, while a lack of understanding, cost, a lack of trust and a belief that services are too complicated, were the most common reasons cited for the reluctance to adopt cloud services.
“The research highlights the need to educate SMBs about the benefits that the right cloud services could bring to their businesses. It is clear that SMBs are juggling the same challenges as their larger counterparts but are making complex technology decisions without the benefit of an IT department or outside expertise to guide them,” said Gene Marks, a small business owner, author and columnist.

The research was conducted for AVG by Opinion Matters, an independent pan-European market research agency, among 505 and 502 Business DM’s in companies in the UK and US employing 1 to 100 employees.

So what about you, what cloud providers are on your naughty and nice list?

1. Create a Sales and Marketing Plan for 2013. Look at what worked and what did not work in 2012 and really plan out what you will do. You need to be a growth organization in order to secure your future in this volatile industry.
2. Get Rid of the Headaches. There are probably a dozen or more annoyances around your business that are really hurting you in some way or another from getting more things done. Figure out what these annoyances are and resolve them. It will probably take a lot of hard work, but it is better to go into 2013 without the headaches than to have to try to achieve your goals with those things nagging at your heels.
3. Shed the Fat. This may be part of number 2, but when I say shed the fat I mean look at your expenses and figure out ways to streamline, or reduce them. You will feel a lot less stress going into 2013 if you have the budget to focus on your growth activities. Shedding the fat could be vendors that need to be let go, canceling membership with associations you have outgrown, and it might even mean getting rid of an unprofitable or difficult client (or employee).
4. Organize. Clean and organize the office, the workbenches, have your employees clean and organize their work areas, your vehicles and anything else that needs organizing or cleaning. This also applies to your physical files and your data. Clean out those files from the filing cabinet that can be shredded and prepare your 2013 files. Organize your computer data by making sure there are no orphan files lying around the server or desktops, or workstations that need to be consolidated to a single place.
5. Make it Look Pretty. Office walls and floors always take some abuse throughout the year. Go buy a bucket of paint and fill in all those scratches, get the carpets cleaned, replace any broken furniture, fixtures or anything else. This might sound superficial, but having a fresh look in an office does wonders to help improve and renew the culture and productivity of a company.

There are a lot more things that one can do to bring about greater 2013 success, but I am sure you are not sitting around with nothing to do. These tasks might take a lot of work, but I guarantee that doing them will make 2013 a much better year and it will help set you and your staff up for success. Please share your own end of year tasks below. What things do you do to help guarantee a more successful upcoming year? I look forward to your responses.

There is a lot of potential for exposure without capital outlay, but do keep in mind that it is not completely free. Your time is valuable, and part of the power of social media stems from the fact that it has a very nasty habit of being addictive.

Sometimes even if you log into Facebook, Google+ or Twitter to manage your business page, there always is another new gadget popping up, another cruel joke that you have to forward to your friends or another meme that you just have to read – “it will only take a second”. Next thing you know an hour has just flown by.

So what should you do? Should you close all your accounts and go back to living in the age of cavemen at the expense of being well-networked? Definitely not – you still need to have a voice out there, you just need to make sure you are doing it well and making the best of the time you spend online.

Set time aside for social media
No, unless you’re running a 911 service by Twitter, your clients are not going to die if you do not answer them within five minutes. Sure, they will be impressed if you do, but they will be far from impressed when you fail to get their server back up and running in the timeframe you had promised because you spent all your time checking your 20 social media feeds.

I encourage you to actively engage with your customers, but don’t get lost in it. Set an hour or two aside for managing your social media and do not dilly dally. When you get online, do what you have to do and move on quickly. If needs be, set alarms and stop when your time is over. There are apps on every platform to help you do this. If you want to go back for leisure feel free to do so – it is perfectly OK as long as it is outside your working hours (whatever they might be) or in self-designated breaks.

At all other times your social media tabs should be closed. Not in the background. Not minimized. Closed. Do not even think about them. Let your notifications gather, remember: you are not running a 911 service.

You Gotta Keep’em Seperated
Open a new account for your business presence online. It might be hard to build a new set of followers, but once you do you get two major benefits.

The first is that all your following is there for the right reason. Your great-aunt (once removed) probably won’t be of much use if you’re promoting the latest blade servers.

The second major advantage is that if you decide to respond to mentions of your brand immediately and want to set up alerts of all contact and mentions of your business name, then you can do so without worrying that you’ll be disturbed the next time your brother’s wife has done her nails.

Formulate a strategy
Now that your time online is limited you are going to have to take a long and hard think about what you want to achieve from social media. If you offer on-site service in Denver, Colorado, it would be useless having 10,000 followers from all over the globe. 100 business owners from within 100 miles of your business would be far more valuable and much more likely to react if you posted a special offer from one of your suppliers online.

Think of who you need to engage with and work hard on that audience. Find out what they like, what they want, what they need and give it to them. Also decide on what you want out of them. Do you want them to become loyal clients or are you after one-off customers who, however, might suggest your business to an acquaintance? Act accordingly.

I am a huge fan of an annual offsite planning meeting. I used to do this when I had my company, but I have only met a few other companies that actually do this. (As a side note the companies I know that do this are highly successful.) Each year I work with various companies to help them and to facilitate their annual offsite planning meeting, and I have seen great success. Let me tell you a little about what an annual offsite is and why it is so important.

What’s the purpose of an annual offsite meeting? The purpose of an annual offsite meeting is to plan the strategic and tactical plan for the upcoming year. Life gets so busy and crazy in an organization that it is important to gather the troops and focus your mind on the strategies and tactics that will be necessary in the upcoming year.

Who attends the annual offsite meeting? The executive team or top management team in an organization. If you are a small IT shop, you can do this alone, or with 1 or 2 other key people in the organization.  If you have never performed an offsite or you feel you need someone to challenge you and guide , then you might want to consider hiring a facilitator to help with the annual offsite.

Why does it need to be “offsite”? It is not necessary but highly suggested. When you can get away from the office, and dedicate time to working on the business, you can leave the stresses of the office behind. This opens you and your team up to amazing creativity that will produce ideas and solutions that would probably never happen in the office.

What do you talk about in the annual offsite meeting? The skies the limit. You should dedicate time to form an agenda before the meeting. The agenda could touch any and every part of the organization. The reason why it is important to do the agenda beforehand is that you want to appropriate parties to have the time to do the research necessary to have the right information at the meeting. If you are considering a big software change then you might want the person responsible to bring the research necessary to the meeting to make an informed decision. If you are planning a new benefits package, you would want to bring information on the packages and costs, etc…

Is it just about making decisions? Absolutely not. Strategy is a huge part of an annual offsite but there should be a lot of actual “doing” in the meeting. What I mean is if you make a decision  take time to lay out the tactical plan for implementing that decision. When is it going to happen? Who will be responsible. You want to leave the meeting with a plan, not a 1,000 item to do list.

 What kinds of things do I need to have for an offsite? 

• A Projector or Large Screen TV with all cables.
• A Flip board with sticky peel off pages, an easel and markers.
• Possibly a whiteboard, although I like the sticky flip charts better.
• I have found a printer to be helpful in printing out parts of the plans as they are being developed.
• High Speed Internet – You will need to stay connected for research purposes
• A Conference Phone if you will be having others join in remotely for different parts

Where should an annual offsite be held? Preferably away from the office. In a location that is not too hard to get to. A place that will hopefully foster creativity and inspiration. You could rent a cabin, a board room in a hotel. I have also rented multi-room suites with a central living room area where we setup shop to meet. Here is a great site where you can rent whole houses for very cheap: https://www.airbnb.com/. You could even trade conference rooms with another provider in another city that you know, or even a client. The point is that it does not have to be expensive to be successful.

When should it be held? Either before the end of the fiscal year or towards the beginning of the fiscal year.

Isn’t an offsite just a waste of time where executives have fun and play on the company dime? Not the way I have proposed and run them. You want to return with an actual plan for the coming year. Almost every offsite I have attended has been intense, working from early morning to late into the night. It is OK though to balance the work out with some fun. Running a business can be stressful and being able to relax and blow off some steam can be hugely beneficial to help you put things in perspective. If you don’t produce results to bring back the office though, you’d better hide the ski pictures.

Should there be training involved? If possible, absolutely. Leadership training, execution training, operations training, management training, teamwork, collaboration, etc… It depends on what your organization needs.

How long should an annual offsite be held? It should be a minimum of 2 days. The maximum is flexible, because it just depends on what needs to be accomplished, and how long you can stay away from the office without things going crazy.  You need to return with a plan. Returning with a to do list is not gonna fly with employees really well. If I had to choose a maximum, I’d say 7 days, if you are doing strategic planning, tactical planning, training, and some fun. I also know companies that do quarterly offsite planning meetings for 1 or 2 days and these work really well also.

I hope you will try and take advantage of the huge benefits of an annual offsite. They can be hugely rewarding and can set you up to have the best year ever. Please share your experience or questions below on doing an annual offsite meeting. and please feel free to contact me if you need help in facilitating or planning one.

We were never happy with sitting back and watching the computing world go by, so we thought we’d get all the information we could about the current state and the future of cloud computing and present it to you, our loyal readers, in a format which is easy to read and understand.

In order to get to the bottom of the issue, we went out and asked executives at some of the top cloud computing providers what they think about the current state of cloud computing and where they see it going in the future.

So head over to the Cloud Leaders Report 2012 immediately and dig into the report.