Finally, you feel like you’ve got your business dialed in.
Your marketing’s tracking nicely, MRR is heading in the right direction, and overall, life’s good.
But one morning you fire up your email and find a message from a client who’s been with you for years. The subject line says it all: “Please cancel my account.”
No matter how long you’ve been in business, or how many clients you have, it’s still a gut punch—especially if you think you’ve been doing everything you possibly can to keep each client healthy and happy. But have you really?
Great relationships between MSPs and clients don’t just happen. They have to be engineered from the very beginning. Here are some concrete steps you can take now to reduce churn and keep your best clients onboard for the long haul.
1. Begin At The Beginning
Reducing client churn starts right from the get-go with your marketing materials and sales experience. These early interactions lay the foundation for the kind of relationship you want that client to expect and receive.
“The most important part is that transition when you close the sale and hand them off to your operations team,” says Tito Huynh, vice president of Business Data Services, an MSP in Overland Park, Kansas. If you don’t have the right processes in place, “it’s like the date was great but at the wedding you discover you’ve married Bridezilla.”
Therefore, make sure you put policies and systems in place to ensure that marketing, sales, and operations lay a consistent, solid foundation for a lasting relationship.
But you can’t stop there …
2. Be Real, Be Accountable
To keep those relationships strong through thick and thin, you must always be real and accountable.
“I wish we were perfect,” says Derek Anderson, president and CEO of BizTek Solutions, an MSP in Riverside, California. “We want to be perfect. We strive for it. But I employ people, not robots, and stuff happens. And when it does, we’re going to be the first to say that was on us, and we’ll make it right.”
Accountability must be embedded within your core values and lived out daily. By acknowledging imperfections, owning up to mistakes, and having regular, meaningful interactions with clients, you build trust—which transforms you as an MSP to something more …
“It’s a shift in mindset,” says Huynh. “You’re not just running their servers or installing patches. You’ve become a partner, a friend, a trusted advisor.”
3. Constantly Pile On Value
Another way to keep clients engaged is to constantly look for ways to pile on even more value.
This can involve regular communications through channels like social media, email, and even traditional mail. Huynh highlights the importance of sharing not only technology tips but also business and cybersecurity advice.
“We’re always looking for something that helps us stand out,” says Anderson. “We actually provide budget for our account managers to provide clients with WOW movements. It could be a $5 Starbucks gift card, a fruit basket, a cake, or anything in between. Nothing big, but the smallest little thing just goes over so well.”
Simply by having regularly scheduled meetings, and being proactive in communicating, you’ll develop a deeper understanding of your clients’ business, which enables you to keep adding value and strengthening those relationships.
4. Keep An Eye Out For Red Flags
Even when things seem like they’re on track and going great, don’t assume that’s true just because you’re not getting bad news.
In fact, according to Anderson, that might be a huge warning sign. “A lack of client communication is often your first indicator that something’s going on. Skipping those quarterly meetings, failure to respond to emails or phone calls—those are all triggers you want to watch for.”
You always want to be monitoring every relationship, tracking client interactions, even setting measurable goals for client engagement, to ensure you remain vigilant. And when red flags do appear, you want to act quickly to reestablish those connections.
“Optimal account management could mean as often as weekly or even daily depending on what projects are going on,” says Huynh, “but at the least you should be having an account management high-level meeting quarterly with your clients. That helps a lot with building the relationship right from the start.”
If You’re Part Of Their Business It’s Harder To Leave You
Reducing client churn requires constant attention, blending strategic marketing, consistent service delivery, genuine relationship-building, and proactive management.
By focusing on these areas, you can not only retain clients, but also create a business environment where those clients see you as an indispensable partner.
“It’s the regular communication and account management that really nurtures the relationship,” says Anderson. “That’s going to make it much harder for clients to leave you if they see you as a part of their business.”
