BrandingWire: Do They Have the "it" Factor?

This month’s BrandingWire assignment is a provider of IT services and a real company. Before I launch into the brief, I would like to share a disclaimer with the group.

My current day job has me in charge of branding, marketing and public relations for a well known IT infrastructure and services company.

Given the potential conflict of interest with this request, and my focus on conversation, I will offer some assistance to the marketing manager at this Canadian small high tech services company in the form of conversation.

The Three C’s – Company, Customers, Challenge

The company is admittedly very hands on and into all things IT –- from network maintenance to emergency work, hardware and software procurement to consulting. An area in which they’d like to expand is Green IT for sustainable solutions.

They appeal to local and regional small to medium size businesses –- among which you may find many non profits, usually the types of organizations that will not have a department or staff in house. As has been my experience with working in a non profit, the accounts payable department can be a little slow. It’s good that they diversified their portfolio to include also firms in financial and account services to commercial real estate, health care and retail.

The company’s billing is quite flexible -– by project and by the hour -- yet they still seem to run into issues in trying to convince the businesses they serve that their rates are fair for the value they provide. The marketing manager states that the company gives great customer service.

Let’s Flesh Out the Challenge

The request to BrandingWire seems twofold:

1. Help the company’s current customers see the value in the services price point. “This may be an inherent problem in the industry (it’s known that IT is on average never properly budgeted for),” says the marketing manager, “but EDS and other huge IT corporations don’t seem to have a problem. We want them to see us as a partner for their business, not just an ‘IT repair service’.”
2. Reach new prospects who already understand the business importance of IT services and may be willing to pay for the company’s services. “Get them to pick us above our competitors for our value-added work.”

Make me Feel the “it” Factor

The belief that the company supplies great customer service needs to be validated. Are customers saying it or is the company? Do customers read the detailed log that comes with the monthly bill, for example? Do they see value in such report? When are customers feeling the love -- at 3AM if something goes horribly wrong? How would you go about collecting evidence and feedback?

You would then be able to use that feedback and testimonials to start a dialogue with prospects. If we step back for a moment and take a look at the universe of businesses in the company portfolio we may identify a type of business that relies more on technology for its day to day operations. Would it pay off to focus on having a deeper conversation on applications and critical data with those businesses? Another thought for consideration might be narrowing the scope of what the company works on and specializing it by researching more closely what the market needs.

_____________________

Your turn, what are your thoughts on marketing IT services? Do you have a preferred provider? Why do you like them? What would make you value a company in this space? We all get the value of rescue when a disaster occurs, what about on the day to day operations?

A brand is built both on the company's characteristics and the perceptions of what the company does in the marketplace -- scarcity and demand are just one of the considerations. Other approaches can be found on the blogs of fellow BrandingWire team members -- Becky Carroll, Martin Jelsema, Kevin Dugan, Patrick Schaber, Steve Woodruff,  Drew McLellan, Gavin Heaton, Lewis Green, and Oliver Blanchard. This month we have three guest bloggers joining in -- Matt Dickman, Chris Brown, and Cam Beck.

Comments

[Lewis Green]

Excellent questions, Valeria.

[Gavin Heaton]

While testimonials are great, the SMB segment lives and breathes on relationships. It is very personal. You ask exactly the right question -- "why do you like them". It isn't JUST about performance but also about relationship.

[Drew McLellan]

Valeria,

What makes your questions so profound is that they are universal.

Any business trying to climb ahead of the pack should use the questions you pose as the discussion guide for a very frank and revealing conversation.

Drew

[Valeria Maltoni]

Thank you, Lewis. Always early on the scene! I had limited time today.

Gavin -- and performance means something different to each of us.

Drew -- interestingly, I observed myself approach all branding questions from the business side.

We had a good variety of ideas, as usual.

[Mark Northern]

As the de facto "marketing guy" in a 12-person IT company that will double in revenue this year even if we totally screw up in 4Q, this posting really resonated with me. A well-known (and high-dollar) marketing consultant to our industry recently told us that 80 percent of customers in our space either a) find us... via search engines, social networking, or other means; or b) are direct referrals.

Only 20 percent of customers come from "direct sales efforts." In this customer-driven world, the key is to make yourself easily found to those who are seeking your solution set... and to maximize your referral efforts. (Time to catch up with Jackie Huba and Ben McConnell again, vis a vis "Creating Customer Evangelists"... easily one of my favorite marketing books of the last decade.)

Hone your value prop. Fine tune your differentiation efforts. And always ask yourself: "Would I find us if I was someone else looking for what we do?"

[Carolyn Ann]

Personal interaction, it's the only way. Couple that with competent and honest services and you're likely to gain that wonderful thing: trust.

I value the tech who admits to screwing up (as long as screwing up isn't a habit!) more than the one who, bravado and dust trailing in his wake, rushes from one job to the other. I used to phrase it "I hate 'heroes'" That is, I didn't want people who could fix something when it was broken: I preferred people who noticed problems, and took steps before the server went down.

Yes, it involved monitoring systems - a service that can be charged for - and it also involved lots of awkward conversations. But the honest company always got my business.

IT is a tricky business: customers expect phone-company reliability, but are willing to pay on the scale of their own phone bill. They don't think about the millions of other customers, all contributing to the maintenance fees of a phone system.

Arguing that a million dollar investment will return reliability gains only works when you also emphasize that the maintenance needs to be kept up. (I've had to do that. It wasn't the easiest "sell" I've ever done...) That's where setting expectations correctly comes in. My boss positioned the new server infrastructure as a silver bullet. I, who had to role out of bed at 3AM when something went south, again, differed. I didn't say it was a cure for the common cold, but it would help alleviate the symptoms. (I got my million dollars.)

That was as an in-house IT provider. I can only imagine how that might work out in the wild. Sure, the dollars are probably lower, but the pain of handing them over for dubious or not-clearly-explained gain is likely to be worse. So the IT firm needs to build trust.

And demonstrate good work: neat cabling, clearly documented systems and so on. Any company I would hire would have to ensure I wasn't dependent upon them. That would be a quick way of being shown the door: I want you look out for my interests, not yours. Yes, I know, it's a consulting firm. They have their interests to watch, as well. But they can be honest about them, and a compromise can be reached. But don't mess with my infrastructure: I've threatened companies with lawsuits (even arrest, in one case!) because of such nonsense.

To avoid the problem of perception - that you're a strategic partner, not just a repair shop - you have to clearly separate the functions. The same salespeople, but not necessarily the same technicians. It's really difficult, no matter how much the IT tech or engineer protests, to be strategic when you're busy fixing stuff. It's easy to perceive the need for changes when it's 2AM and the server is still refusing to work. But that's different from looking at the IT infrastructure and saying "How do I avoid problems?" (I never call them "challenges"; such PC nonsense makes the whole thing an exercise in linguistics and not engineering.)

So that's sort of how I'd approach the issue. I've worked with a number of IT providers, and the ones that got my attention, and dollars, treated my technicians better than they did me: they took them for lunch, paid for a few rounds after work or after a difficult problem was resolved, asked after their kids, and so on. (Hearts and minds, it's a tried and true tactic.)

Carolyn Ann

PS Valeria, I'm going to use some of these points in a post I'm popping on my blog (later today, probably). I sincerely hope you don't mind. If you do, let me know and I'll rephrase them. By way of explanation, I never assume ownership of words when they're on someone's blog. A gift of words is a gift; freely given, with no strings. And as such I relinquish "ownership" of them. But if I can re-use them, so much the better! :-) /CA

[Valeria Maltoni]

Mark:

Would it be fair to say that for a service as critical as your IT "plumbing" people go to people they know to get a referral?

It's amazing how visible we are to ourselves. Yet we might have missed opportunities to be in front of people looking for what we do. Good advice!

[Valeria Maltoni]

Carolyn Ann:

First things first -- please go ahead and use/elaborate on your thinking here. There is a lot of good advice and the more read it, the better. I do hope our Canadian IT company is reading the comments, always the forte at Conversation Agent.

I love your example of the phone company. In fact, if we took it a step further, we would say that we expect a dial tone (that everything works well) and get all twisted when things don't. It is hard to explain that things working well is also part of the service.

You make an interesting observation about separating the staff into different technicians for different services. It may be the reason why larger companies have less of a problem selling their services (as in the IT company marketing manager's words).

This is really good food for thought. Thank you!

[Carolyn Ann]

Thanks, Valeria!

Oh, the reason for the separation of roles: I tried it with a staff of 9. In the end I had to hire a few more people, and really split the roles. I'm sorry, I don't have the time right now (I'm trying to finish the renovations on my house! Darned electrics*!!!), but will explore that a little more when I write that blog posting. (Hopefully tonight.)

I'll post my thinking here, too.

Thanks again
Carolyn Ann

*One of my least favorite jobs: get a wire through 16" of fiberglass insulation. &^$%@#* wiring! :-) /CA

[Valeria Maltoni]

Carolyn Ann:

Having rewired an entire house I feel your pain ;-) Having clear expectations helps with focus. I look forward to learning more from you. Good luck with the wire.

[Carolyn Ann]

Done!

It's nowhere near as professional as Valeria's posts, but it's got some stuff I couldn't include, didn't think of, etc this morning.

It's here: Running from IT. http://carolyn-ann.blogspot.com/2007/09/running-from-it.html

(Apologies, Valeria. I should have asked for your permission before posting a link back to my blog! I decided to take the chance of offending you, because it's 2AM and I'm rather tired... Sorry!)

Carolyn Ann

PS It's called "Running from IT" for a reason. It's a play on words. And I got that cable sorted. Thankfully.

[Valeria Maltoni]

It's a great post, Carolyn Ann. And I do hope our Canadian IT Services friends make it over there and read every word. Thank you.

[Martin]

Valeria: You make a good point, one I always ask potential clients to look at: Who and why are particular accounts the ones I like doing business with (because they are profitable, pay on time, are pleasant to work with, etc.). Then determine what they like about you. Now you know what kind of business to target and what message may be most compelling. Well stated, Valeria. Martin

[Valeria Maltoni]

Martin:
I thought your post was terrific. You fleshed out the business questions before approaching any recommendations.

[Kevin Dugan]

Valeria - I'm slowly making the rounds this week, but I enjoyed your post.

"A brand is built both on the company's characteristics and the perceptions of what the company does in the marketplace -- scarcity and demand are just one of the considerations."

Perception is all too often reality and companies really need to listen to their customers to learn their motivations and their perceptions.

We're doing this excercise in a vacuum, but it occurs to me that the comments from clients that their rates are high might not be a bad thing for two reasons...it keeps out clients that do not fit their target and/or they are delivering a level of value that clients don't mind paying the higher rate.

People pay a premium for luxury autos for example and, while this is not apples to apples, they don't mind paying more for the quality and safety that comes along with the price tag.

But if that is the case here, the detailed invoices must change as you discuss above.

[Valeria Maltoni]

Kevin:
Invoices, business cards, how you answer the phone. It all speaks to your brand and the value people perceive from it. Are you a good brand steward? What is your promise? These are all pieces of the brand impression.

[Carolyn Ann]

Being pro-active. I didn't mention it, and I should have!

An IT firm creates a positive brand impression by not waiting for the client to call with a problem: they seek out the work. Engage in a conversation, chat to clients and even potential clients about their systems, networks and so on. Don't necessarily "sell" in these conversations; the idea is to help create a positive impression, and one of competence. (Of course, if the client clearly needs some help, don't be shy about offering it!)

Corporate IT (consulting) is a little different to the appliance repair-shop. You really have to engage the customer; the appliance store simply needs to sell you something.

Carolyn Ann