How to Create World-Class Services
Tom Maxwell avatar
Written by Tom Maxwell
Updated over a week ago

Now that you have a base set of services, it’s time to add the services that are unique to your business. In doing this, remember the following tips:

Align your fee structure with value

A great business model aligns your costs, invoicing, and payment collection with the delivery of value to your clients. If you are hoping to collect monthly fees from your clients, make sure your service has, at the very least, a monthly deliverable. Delivering value when asking for payment is the best way to eliminate fee disputes and will result in higher customer satisfaction.

Use a framework to write your descriptions

 Our recommended framework includes:

  • Deliverables: What outcomes will the client receive with this service?

  • Software/3rd party vendors: Will you be using software or a 3rd party vendor to deliver the service? If yes, who’s responsible for paying for the subscription or vendor fees? (note: only include this if the software or the vendors are client facing)

  • Timeframe: How long will the project take? Or, for recurring services, how frequently will you deliver your service?

  • Limitations: This is the scope creep killer. Are there any caps on your deliverables? If your accountant, how many employees are included in your payroll service? If you deliver marketing services, how many ads per month are included in the scope? 

Consider tiers for scalable services

Tiers are the go-to pricing strategy for SaaS (Software as a Service) companies just like Ignition, as they are scalable for both the business and the customer.

Tiered services rely on a value metric as the differentiator. An example of one of our value metrics is the number of active clients that each subscription tier allows.The value metric helps define the scope of a service and provides a clear “service expansion” point. Continuing the examples from above, a tiered payroll service might look like this:

  • Startup package: up to 5 employees

  • Small business package: 6-10 employees

  • Medium+ business package: 11-20 employees

A marketing package might look like this:

  • Start up package: up to 10 facebook ads per month

  • Rev up package: 11-20 facebook ads per month

  • Scale up package: 21-40 facebook ads per month

Tiered service packages are amazing for setting clear expectations. As your clients’ needs change, they move up to the next tier. If you’ve priced them correctly, the Cost per Value Metric should go down as they move up and expand their utilization of your service.

Soaring Falcon Accountancy from the UK shows us how they use value metrics to differentiate their baseline packages. In this case they have payroll and tax returns as value metrics.

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