We stress all the time about the need to “own the customer,” particularly in the SMB market. A solution provider’s ability to fill any gaps in service, expand your offerings and—perhaps most importantly—block competitors from getting their foot in the door are all instrumental to achieving long-term success with clients.
Of course, many times that’s easier said than done. But it can be accomplished. Jeff Bendix, president and owner of Bendix Imaging knows because he’s winning that battle.
Bendix Imaging, a Watertown, South Dakota-based Tigerpaw customer, started in 2000 as a print cartridge remanufacturer before eventually evolving into an early adopter of managed print services. As the print and IT networking worlds started to converge, Bendix realized he had to adjust his business model once again. Today, Bendix Imaging offers full service managed print and IT, with almost all of the company’s business coming from recurring revenue. I had a great conversation recently with Jeff, who told me that adding managed IT was one of the best decisions he’s ever made for his company.
“Absolutely one of our biggest strengths is having both managed print and IT services. When we compare ourselves to other providers, there isn’t a comparison. They can’t do what we can do,” Bendix said. “In addition, everybody else waits for stuff to break and tries to fix it and bill accordingly. We get paid to make sure things don’t break. We try to drive everyone toward that model. And if they have a print issue or an IT issue, it doesn’t matter. They make one phone call.”
Indeed, the ability to have a single provider for managed print and IT is an attractive model for small businesses that want to focus on their core competency. The less time spent trying to figure out what’s wrong and who to call, the better.
A Recipe for Success: Print, IT, Tigerpaw
So what’s the best way to add managed print (or managed IT)? Having the right backend systems that allow you to integrate both seamlessly into a single ticket system is essential. Tigerpaw Software recently rolled out enhancements to our platform that allow you to manage both from one system.
We think our new managed print functionality is going to be a game-changer for service providers from both camps. In fact, it’s why Bendix Imaging chose to standardize on Tigerpaw Software this summer, Jeff said.
“We have a back-end system than ran my print business but it couldn’t interact with any tools or products in the IT world. We looked at ConnectWise and Autotask. They promise to do things but as soon as you ask them a couple of print-related questions, it became apparent they didn’t have it and had no intention to. Only Tigerpaw did,” said Bendix. “This integration is going to really help us accelerate our growth on the IT side. We do too many things inefficiently with not enough visibility of what’s going on. Tigerpaw is going to change all that.”
Bendix isn’t alone. More and more managed print and IT providers are starting to cross-pollinate their offerings in order to own their SMB customers’ whole office. They realize that the best way to keep the competition out is by doing more. I encourage you to consider adding managed print (or managed IT) to your current services portfolio in order to become a one-stop shop and keep your competition at bay.
I’d love to know if you’ve recently expanded your business into managed print or IT and what your experience was. And if you want more information on how Tigerpaw can help you through the transition, contact us at sales@tigerpaw.com.