There has been an increase in shift to cloud for both small and mid-sized businesses. This has led to better opportunities for Cloud Solution Providers to expand their business. Even though opportunities to earn profits are becoming wide, the competition of selling cloud is also becoming intense day-by-day. The cloud market has grown and so has the number of sellers. CSPs need to constantly innovate to increase their market share and business revenue.

Here we are decoding top practices for CSPs to differentiate themselves from competitors in the market and become a preferred choice for customers.

Expand your portfolio

Customers routinely look for products and services that can add value to their business as well as simplify the work processes and flow. A business has several needs and managing multiple vendors for different cloud related business requirements can be cumbersome. Multiple vendors translate into numerous bills, varied billing and payment cycles, and the need to keep track of different subscriptions and services. This all leads to increased administrative costs  at your customers’ end.

To reduce the operational inefficiencies and risks associated with multiple vendors, many customers look for one solution provider for all their cloud and cloud related needs. Expand your portfolio to add more products and services to become a one-stop shop for all the cloud needs of your customers. Adding more products to your portfolio will help you increase your market share. Additionally, this can help you sell your value-add services as well, which can promote greater revenue growth with greater margins.

Offer bundled services

Study the current market trends to understand the needs of businesses today. Depending upon that, create bundles and packages that can help solve specific problems your customers might be facing right now or have the potential to face in the future. This long-term vision for their business will help further cement your relationship with your customers. Bundling and selling cloud solutions can lead to increased revenue for your CSP business. 

When creating bundles, it is advisable to clearly state the inclusions of each package so that you do not incur losses providing services outside the scope. Furthermore, you can offer some exciting discounts for bundles to attract more customers and differentiate your brand in the market.

Automate cloud service delivery

When you expand your portfolio as well as offer bundled solutions to your customers, the profitability of your CSP business will increase but so will the challenges you will face managing them. Managing the billing that comes with multiple cloud services and bundles is not an easy task. Different customers have varied billing cycles, pricing models, bundled purchases, etc. leading to increased complexity in generating invoices and tracking payments. Managing complex billing systems can result in poor experience for your customers.

Relying on partner centers for usage reconciliation can lead to a poor customer experience, pushing your customers to prefer your competitors. To avoid the same and gain a competitive edge, automated billing is your go to solution. Receive automated itemized invoices for your customers to prevent revenue leakage and augment the entire billing experience.

Empower your customers

Most CSP businesses promote customer reliance on their executives for every request. However, this can be frustrating for customers. To differentiate yourself from others in the market, offer your customer a shop and cart-like experience focused on self-service. Give your customers the power to manage their cloud purchases themselves.

By using an automated cloud service delivery platform, customers can have a comprehensive overview of all the cloud services availed by them. All their transactions, invoices, Billing reports, payments, etc can be accessed from a single platform. With self service capabilities, your customers don’t have to be dependent on you for approval for every request. They can take care of their requirements when they want and facilitate instant purchase requirement. Invariably, this will contribute to exceptional customer experience, differentiating you from the rest.

Differentiate your CSP journey with C3

Cloud delivery automation tools offered by C3 can help you gain an advantage over your competitors. Right from best-in-class features for automated invoicing, customer self-service, exceptional integrations to comprehensive customer service, C3 can seamlessly help you scale your CSP journey and differentiate yourself from your competitors. Leverage C3 capabilities to augment your customer experience, reduce administrative overheads and gain an edge over other players in the market.