Range Telephone Cooperative Builds New MSP Practice With Managed Workplace | Avast Business

The Company

In 1953, Range Telephone Cooperative was established in Forsyth, Montana to provide telephone service to those rural areas that Mountain Bell could not effectively serve. Today, the company and its affiliates provide voice and high-speed internet services to over 4,000 subscribers and 18 telephone exchanges in southwestern Montana and southeastern Wyoming.

In October 2017, Range Telephone Cooperative launched its managed services provider (MSP) business, focused on security, network, and firewall management. IT Network/Systems Technician Paul Rainey was asked to lead the charge as MSP Manager. Prior to joining Range Telephone Cooperative, Paul owned and operated an MSP business. But even with that experience under his belt, this venture presented a challenge. He had revenue goals to meet and customers to retain, while at the same time setting up a ticketing system, document storage, disaster recovery, network security management, and much more.

The Challenge

While Paul’s initial focus was to put the right technology and services in place to build a strong and loyal client base, his attention then turned to gaining those new customers. “The challenge is understanding that this isn’t a rush to the finish line,” he says. “You have to take a customer on a journey to build value. For our new MSP business, that journey includes working closely with customers to help them understand their network, the deficiencies they may have, the gaps they need to fill to protect their business, and their immediate and long-term priorities. This isn’t an overnight process.”  

The Solution

After evaluating all remote monitoring and management (RMM) solutions on the market, Paul turned to Managed Workplace as the engine for his MSP venture. “Managed Workplace is a complete RMM product that ties everything together for me – AV, content, email and spam filtering, single sign-on, monitoring, and reporting,” Paul explains. “I don’t have to piecemeal a bunch of solutions together. Now I have access to a one-stop solution for each customer and a powerful tool to ultimately build value with customers. With that value, I can upsell and price services effectively.

“When you’re working with a customer and relying on the customer to give you all the details of their network, you have to play detective and hope that you’re able to see everything on the network. Managed Workplace gives me the best insight into a customer’s site. I can ask informed questions and demonstrate my value right away. This is fantastic to be able to offer.”

Paul also praises the popular Managed Workplace security assessment tool: “Using the security assessment, I can now generate a report to show customers what I see and provide a security score. For example, I can show that on fifty machines, ten don’t have antivirus installed. I can ask about patch management and show that they only scored 33%. The security assessment is a great pre-sales tool to help win customers as well as upsell services with existing customers.”

The Results

Using Managed Workplace, and touting the benefits of its security assessment reports, Paul signed four new clients in less than two months. He credits the RMM with not only driving new business, but also enabling him to play a trusted role with his customers. He sums up the benefits Managed Workplace has afforded Range Telephone Cooperative as follows:

• Built new MSP practice from the ground up
• Signed four new clients in first 60 days
• Scaled operations from 0 to 800 devices in first 60 days

“We are using Managed Workplace to build a whole new business,” concludes Paul. “It enables me to be a true technology partner to my clients and help my customers make decisions that are right for their business. I can confidently provide accurate information about their network. This dramatically shrinks the time it takes to close new deals while building value quickly.”

If the success of Paul’s team at Range Telephone Cooperative has an inspirational ring for you, and you’d like to drive revenue and customer retention as they did, check out a free trial of Managed Workplace RMM and experience the better value it builds into your business.