Enterprise Backup Solutions And Managing Your Clients Expectations 2024

Client expectations and specifically client expectations when it comes to enterprise backup solutions will be the primary focus of today's article.

I am going to try and explain the disconnect between backup as a service offerings that service providers put together and what the MSP clients expectations actually are and see why there is so often a huge difference between what clients think they are paying for and what they are actually paying for.

While you are here, Take a look at some of our other backup content resources below that may interest you:

As a secondary goal of the main topic, I will also discuss how documentation can help IT consulting services manage and maintain data recovery solutions effectively as it specifically relates to this topic.

Content structuring is also an essential aspect of the IT industry whether it be storage solutions discussed here or the steps involved in building a customizable NAS solution or creating guides on backing up Google Workspace, It enables IT consulting advisors to manage and maintain the IT infrastructure of their clients effectively.

We have years of experience in working with service providers to record their processes and procedures and there is no area more important to a service provider than how their clients' backup and disaster recovery systems are documented.

Backups - Your Clients Expectations

This is simple, anytime that they lose anything from a file to a database server, they expect the backup solution they are paying for to be able to recover it.

The time frame to recover it will always be shorter than reality permits in most cases.

Clients engage with backup providers because they do not have the technical experience to do it themselves and they are busy running their business and worrying about their own clients. The 1 hour discussion about backups 2 years ago is not something they will really remember and certainly they will not be familiar with the details.

Backups - Service Providers Expectations

That is also easy although you probably need to refer to the backup agreement to refresh your memory too.

Part of the problem is that backup agreements are often static so that they are agreed to at a certain point in time for a certain dollar amount. This can be an issue if new assets are not automatically added to the backup agreement.

Where Conflict On Backups Occur

There are two naturally competing interests whenever a back up strategy is pitched to either an existing client or potential client and unfortunately both interests are working against each other.

The first is your natural desire to make the solution you offer to not only look like the best backup option available but to downplay any backup blind spots. Backup solutions will always be a sliding scale of risk where the more money a client spends on a complete backup solution, the less risk involved and more chance there is of a certain backup recovery.

The competing interest to this in many cases is the client or potential client wants to pay the least amount they possibly can. I have been in enough sales meetings regarding potential backup solution sales to know that even clients that have a better understanding will still be swayed heavily by the sticker price of the backup solution.

So you have the client wanting the cheapest possible option who may not fully understand the featureset or the reasons why some features can cause the price to increase dramatically. We have the provider that wants the sale and understands the need to keep the price from blowing out.

Backup and Recovery Achilles Heel

Your propensity as a service provider to gloss over the weak points of your backup solution is only matched by the potential clients propensity to overlook any weak points mentioned. You all want the deal especially if the price is right.

It is the perfect storm and the reason why there is often a great deal of apprehension by both the client and the service provider when it comes to a true disaster recovery scenario, we are talking about a once in a career event that causes an organization to grind to a halt.

It is the easiest thing in the world as a service provider to sell a backup solution cheaply because you only ever have to worry about it if something goes really wrong. Do not be one of these types of providers of which there are many.

Backup Solution Expectations and The Sales Process

Part of the reason that I believe smaller managed service providers probably have an advantage with backup expectations is that they do not have a sales team.

It will often be the owner who has a technical background or a senior technician that has good people skills that is doing the selling so they are intimately aware of the capability of the backup solution they are offering.

They will not be as successful at obtaining the sales they go for but at the end of it, their clients will have a better understanding in most cases of what they are paying for.

Paradox Of Technical Sales

I have seen this enough to know that it is true and that the more you know about any given topic the less likely you are to be able to convince a person that does not know about the topic that you know what you are talking about. Basically the less you know about something, the more confident you are about your answers.

Sales staff are generally far more capable of selling something than technical staff and part of that reason is they only have a superficial understanding of the solution being offered. When 6 foot 4 Dexter St Jock breezes in with a disarming smile and his unique ability to make every single person in the room feel like they are the only one in the room, he may think a backup is some type of football strategy but it will not matter, you get the sale.

Because of their superficial understanding of a solution combined with their understanding of the sales process, many of the questions asked by the client will be either straight up yes or no answers all the while the client is taken down a specific path to where they will be more likely to sign up to whatever is being offered.

Contrast this to big brained Brad who knows every last detail about the providers backup solution and yet everyone gets an uneasy feeling whenever he is in front of the general public. He may start pontificating about how Linux should be the only operating system to be legally used.

You may have timed his monologues surpassing 90 seconds before he takes a breath and you will notice a little white globule has formed in the corner of his mouth that moves from top to bottom and then back again like a macabre dancing slug during these rantings. Just quietly, you have also contemplated discussing his personal hygiene issues except you then remember the guy is a backup and recovery genius and you do not want to upset him.

Now if you take someone with that sort of knowledge into a sales meeting you will end up with a never ending number of “it depends” or “no” to questions followed up by answers to questions that nobody actually understands.

Even though those answers might be spot on and giving the potential client exactly what they asked for you will find at the end of the meeting you will get something like “Thanks for your time, we will be in touch”

You end up losing the sale because the person knew too much about the product and either confused or turned the potential clients completely off.

Answer To The Backup Sales Paradox

Print those glossy brochures out, make your offerings look bullet proof, put the best spin on your solutions, leave out areas that make your offering look bad, just do not do it when it comes to backups.

One Backup Solution

My solution to this problem was to only offer a single backup solution so that there were not 10 different variables that I had to remember. I do not consider different capacities to be a different backup plan.

I dealt with clients of a certain size so they all legitimately required a local NAS backup component and a cloud based component, I did not offer one or the other. I did not offer a cut down solution just to get the sale through.

Backup and Recovery Cheat Sheet

This is important especially if you have a sales team. Create an aesthetically pleasing backup cheat sheet and start off writing down everything that your backup solution does not cover.

These should be not be based on technical shortcomings from the providers point of view, they should be client recovery scenarios as that is the only thing that matters, below is one example of many scenarios:

An electrical storm caused a surge last night and our VMware VSphere host server with 7 virtual machines on it will not start, when can you have that up and running?

The backup solution discussed today backs up all of your virtual machines to an online cloud location each evening. Because we have used a premium cloud provider, we can allocate some cloud storage and can have all 7 machines up and running so that your staff can continue working.

This backup solution has a built in leeway of 3 hours meaning that you should allow for a maximum 3 hour loss of work that may need to be re done.

Because this solution includes a detailed disaster recovery plan, our service level agreement guarantees in this situation that we can have the server's fully functional including, network configuration, printers and other local devices running within 7 hours.

This would be dependent on a suitably sized internet link available at your head office as well as availability of all necessary licensing information from vendors.

The above question and answer example gives the client the answers they need rather than a bunch of technical jargon that is wishy washy at best. It also allows sales staff who may not be technically proficient to confidently answer the clients questions.

Below is the same example that demonstrates the level of transparency required:

An electrical storm caused a surge last night and our VMware VSphere host server with 7 virtual machines on it will not start, when can you have that up and running?

Not Possible - The operating systems and applications that run on your servers themselves are not backed up under this backup proposal.

We only backup the changing data and databases. If required we can recover the data however it would be our estimate it could take from 300 hours minimum (not included) of labor to rebuild all of the virtual machines and restore the data to those machines.

This would be dependent on server hardware capable of running those machines being provided as well as access to vendor support for all of the applications you currently run on those virtual servers.

As can be seen above, I strongly advise to give the worst possible scenario. Too many solution providers will say yes to the answer above because technically, you can recover from that situation and by saying yes to that, it means you are more likely to achieve the sale.

We both know that is not the client's perception if you said yes to that question.

You rationalize that something like the above will never happen so it is no big deal and that is true, until it isn't…….

Communication Both Written and Verbal

Verbal communication is fine at the initial stage however once you establish that the client is serious then it is time to pull out the checklist mentioned above and go through it in detail with the client, step by step, scenario by scenario.

I always preferred two separate meetings when it came to backup solutions but if you are comfortable being able to combine the sales component and the understanding component then go for it. The primary focus though should be ensuring the client walks away fully understanding what it is they are paying for.

Augment the checklist with any other disaster recovery scenarios the potential client may have and if it is not in your checklist then ensure it gets added. Have the client initial every page of the cheat sheet and sign at the end. Ensure it forms part of the agreement.

Highlight The Following Points

Make it clear to the client in the backup agreement that it is their responsibility to inform you of any modifications to their environment that would require a modification to the backup. New servers etc.

Ensure that you specify what is and is not included in a recovery operation. Recovering a file is a long way from multiple critical servers needing to be recovered. Normally recovering a file or something of that nature is included in the service.

A serious loss of data can take vast amounts of labor so you need to make it very clear exactly what is and is not included when a recovery request is to be made.

Name the client contact in the agreement and ensure that you make it clear that the client is required to update you whenever that position has been modified so that you can ensure the person has the right skills and knows their responsibilities. Ensure that you write into the agreement that if this is not honored then the agreement is void.

Conclusion

Expectations of clients regarding what is and is not included in the backup solution they pay for is among the most difficult to keep problem free. Client expectations especially when it comes to enterprise backups is an area where your business has the most exposure to being liable for a mistake.

Because of the competing interests, it is easy to give the client the perception that they are covered when in actual fact they either are not covered or there is an excessive effort or cost involved to get them back to full capacity.

We have a number of other backup articles specifically related to clients listed below that will provide you with more detailed information on a number of related topics:

https://optimizeddocs.com/blogs/backups/backups-client-index

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