“When prospects ask us about other migration tools, we tell them that we only use ConnectWise cloud migration. We’ve done over a hundred of them, and they’ve all gone off without a hitch. This helps assure prospects that by hiring us their risk is very low.”
Jon Milward, Co-founder, Compete366
“The quality of support is fantastic! You’re never on your own. The people are friendly, respond quickly and have a high level of expertise. Plus, you can always escalate things to engineering if needed.”
Jon Milward, Co-founder, Compete366
ConnectWise makes the migration easy
While their business was still in the planning stages, Jon and Warren attended Microsoft’s annual Worldwide Partner Conference (now MS Inspire). It was there that they were introduced to ConnectWise.
“We had a look at it,” Jon recalls, “and it made sense. We thought that since it looked good, we’d give it a go. If it worked, we’d keep using it.” Compete366 launched in September 2014 and won their first email migration project, for which they used ConnectWise cloud migration, at the end of 2014. They quickly discovered that it worked even better than anticipated.
“We’ve done more than a hundred migrations since that first one,” Jon shares, “and have used ConnectWise exclusively ever since. The ease of use and extensive capabilities of the migration tools, which is what attracted us to ConnectWise in the first place, make it possible for us to automate this critical workload.”
There are a number of reasons why Compete366 continues to rely on ConnectWise cloud migraion for Office 365:
- Standardized process
“Using ConnectWise cloud migration,” Jon says, “means that every project is the same. We’ve documented it. We have templates and procedures. This simplifies things for us and reduces risk for our clients.”
- Efficient use of consultant’s time
The Compete366 team finds ConnectWise’s automated tools and usability so compelling that they usually are able to multi-task during the migration. Since they know exactly what will happen each time, the migration doesn’t require their full, continuous attention.
- Minimal use of customer’s time
There is very little that the customer and their end users must do to help facilitate the migration.
- Low Risk
“A big benefit for the customer,” Jon points out, “is that you’re copying things rather than moving them. This makes the migration very low risk and provides an easy roll-back plan.”
- Exceptional support
“The quality of the support is fantastic!” Jon exclaims. “You’re never on your own. The people are friendly, respond quickly and have a high level of expertise.
Of course, the number one reason why Compete366 has remained so loyal is that, from their customers’ perspective, they have never had anything go wrong during a migration. Given the fact that every migration is a “really big deal” to the customer, Jon feels that this is huge.
“The reality,” Jon admits, “is nothing is going to be seamless every time. Sometimes issues arise, and when they do, we really appreciate being backed by an extremely good support team.”
Compete366 has even used ConnectWise cloud migration tools to complete 10 Office 365-to-Office 365 migrations, something they see becoming a more
frequent requirement as businesses merge or divest. And these have gone smoothly as well.
Compete366’s customers use backup as more than just an “insurance policy”
Jon and Warren believe in picking one supplier and investing in that relationship. So when ConnectWise introduced ConnectWise Cloud Backup, they naturally gave it a try.
“We’ve never looked elsewhere,” Jon concedes. “We have a good relationship. We like ConnectWise’s support. We had a play with Cloud Backup, it seemed to work nicely, so why wouldn’t we use it?”
Specifically, the Compete366 team likes the fact that ConnectWise Cloud Backup provides:
- Recurring revenue
This is at the core of Compete366’s business strategy.
- Broad backup options
ConnectWise can back up all of the key categories of Office 365 content, including mailboxes, Teams, SharePoint and OneDrive.
- Easy management and use
“Our customers manage their own backups,” Jon notes. “As part of setting it up, which in itself is very easy, we offer a driving lesson around it. Only about 30% take us up on this, because once they look in there they see that this backup is so obvious and intuitive, they don’t need instruction.”
This ease of use has another benefit: Businesses don’t hesitate to use it even if just one file needs to be restored. Compete366 gets regular notifications that someone is restoring something. This shows Jon that customers are getting regular benefit from it and are therefore likely to look favorably at the monthly fee. “If it was a pain to use,” Jon points out, “they’d only restore something when they really, really had to.”
ConnectWise Cloud Backup as a key business enabler
Compete366’s growth has been enviable. Not only have they grown from 0 to 250 customers in six years, they’ve also grown top line revenue 50% year over-year for the past four years in a row.
Not surprisingly, Compete366 has made ConnectWise an integral part of their sales process. The easy and trouble-free nature of ConnectWise cloud migration is emphasized in the initial sales calls. The migration process and many configuration options are on display in a screen share during the discovery and planning session. A printout of the Discovery and Planning Tool’s output—as well as budgetary information for ConnectWise Cloud Backup—are both included with the migration project proposal.
“When prospects ask us about other migration tools,” Jon relates, “we tell them that we only use ConnectWise cloud migration. We’ve done over a hundred of them, and they’ve all gone off without a hitch. This helps assure prospects that by hiring us their risk is very low.”
Although ConnectWise cloud migration itself does not provide recurring revenue, it is a key enabler of the recurring revenue that is at the core of Compete366’s business strategy - customer acquisition. Once the engagement begins, ConnectWise’s migration tools help Compete366 easily onboard customers. After that, Compete366 is well positioned for cross-sell opportunities, such as for ConnectWise Cloud Backup. It’s a virtuous circle that has also helped with client retention.
“Since we don’t tie them in to long-term contracts,” Jon explains, “we want to be ‘sticky’ with the customer. The more services they’re getting from us, the stickier the relationship is.”
Conclusion
As a business, Compete366 has two key IT vendor relationships: Microsoft and ConnectWise.
The strong partnerships they’ve developed over the years with both have been pivotal not only to the company’s mission and strategy, but also in how it’s been able to efficiently execute on its goals.
