Why the people behind your SPM Managed Service matter

Unlocking value for clients through a proactive services team culture

Managed Services Director Piotr Orlowski explains what’s he’s doing differently at Compincent, based on career-long learning about successful service delivery.

There’s a major misconception about Managed Services for SPM. Both developers and customers tend to think that all the exciting work happens in the design and implementation of the SPM solution, and that the Managed Services contract that follows on is for commoditised, reactive troubleshooting and routine maintenance.

With that attitude, it’s not surprising that some Managed Services providers fail to attract and retain high calibre people, nor that many clients don’t appreciate the true value they could be getting from their provider. It explains why high churn rates are common in the industry, with little loyalty or differentiation in commodity Managed Services provision.

It’s true that routine bug fixes and support tickets play a part in every Managed Services contract that we undertake. But there’s so much more value and potential in a truly effective Managed Service for SPM.

Here at Compincent, we’ve learned from decades of experience that a typical Managed Services agreement often fails to live up to customer expectations. It’s also not very appealing for our employees to work on.

Motivated people are key to support that goes above and beyond

We believe it’s crucial that the people supporting a client’s SPM solution through Managed Services are fully engaged and invested in its success, so we can attain and maintain the service and outcomes that the customer needs. That means offering our Managed Services team members the chance to make a difference and innovate as well as carrying out routine tasks.

We’re fortunate to have a growing team of committed and knowledgeable people at all levels. The people providing day to day support are ambitious and keen to learn more. Our junior developers are the consultants of tomorrow and we want them to treat Managed Services delivery as an opportunity to put their knowledge to good use to enhance and improve SPM delivery, as well as handling everyday issues. 

Our Compincent purpose is to excel in supporting our customers. We know that outstanding service quality is a powerful differentiator for us, but we’re also mindful of value for money. We operate a virtual team for Managed Services, which keeps our overheads low. The team is UK-based, so we’re able to build a strong service culture based on effective collaboration and knowledge sharing as a genuine virtual team. We’re not a collection of isolated freelancers. We invest hard in supporting our people, so they have the best of both worlds: flexibility and contentment from home-based working and a structured, well-supported team environment.

A proactive approach to Managed Services

For our clients, this means that everyone at Compincent involved in delivering their SPM Managed Service takes a proactive approach. We take the time to ensure that our team is informed about each client’s business and how their SPM solution contributes. With that context, they can connect the impact of support requests and technical issues with the client’s day to day operations. This helps us to achieve right-first-time responses and resolutions that will meet or exceed the client’s need. For us, Managed Services is not just a technical exercise, it’s about supporting a business-critical client process.

Good old-fashioned attention to individual client business needs

Through regular interactions with our clients and deep familiarity with both their solution and their business need, we’re very well placed to notice opportunities to gain more value from the SPM solution. Motivated and interested support team members enjoy the challenge of considering how to optimise or improve processes and features.

That doesn’t mean we’re constantly upselling. We’re keen to make sure that the solution is delivering all the accuracy and efficiency benefits that it can. Over-selling isn’t in our interest: we want to retain the Managed Services business by showing that we’re maintaining and enhancing the value of the solution rather than over-engineering it!

The change challenge that excites our team: optimising customer investment

As clients’ businesses change, they may initiate changes and improvements to the solution that bring them more business benefit. That could mean adopting more sophisticated payment algorithms, incorporating more performance data sources, increasing the number of plans or adding new teams. When we’re asked to deliver these changes, our team collaborates to share ideas and experience so we can propose a change plan that builds in the maximum benefit. We all enjoy the challenge of identifying innovative or experience-based features and tweaks that deliver even more bang for our clients’ buck and help them achieve more in their business.

Fostering this proactive and collaborative Managed Services team culture at Compincent helps us retain and develop excellent people as well as providing an outstanding client experience. We’re proud that we’ve found a way to do this in a virtual working environment, optimising work-life balance for our people while keeping overheads to a minimum so our customers benefit from excellent value and focus. Our customer retention rate and our minimal employee attrition are testament to the commercial and human benefits for everyone.