Do You Guys Do Phones Too? The Question Every MSP Gets

It comes up on nearly every account eventually. A client’s phone contract is renewing. Their old PBX is dying. The carrier is sunsetting their POTS lines. They’re opening a second location and need it wired for voice. So they turn to the person they already trust with everything else that plugs into the wall, and they ask: “Do you guys do phones too?”

If you run an MSP or a break/fix shop, you know the small hesitation that follows. Because for years there hasn’t been a good answer.

Should an MSP offer phone service to its clients?

Yes, if it can do so without becoming a phone company. Voice is sticky, recurring revenue, and clients are already asking for it. The costly mistakes are declining, which invites a competitor into the account, or taking phones on unsupported. A managed partnership lets the MSP say yes while a provider runs the platform, billing, and support.

Why the question keeps landing on you

You didn’t ask to be in the phone conversation. You got there by being good at everything around it. You manage their network, their firewall, their workstations, their backups. When something on their desk stops working, you’re the first call. Phones sit right in the middle of that world: same cabling, same network, same “why isn’t this working” energy. So from the client’s chair, you’re the obvious person to ask.

That trust is the whole reason the question exists. It’s also what makes the wrong answer so expensive.

The two answers, and why both have hurt

Historically you’ve had two ways to respond, and neither is good.

You can say “no, we don’t handle that.” It’s honest. It’s also an open door. The next vendor who walks in to quote the phone system now has a reason to be inside your account, talking to your client, asking what else they’re unhappy with. You didn’t lose the deal you never wanted. You loaned out the relationship you spent years building.

Or you can say “sure, we’ll figure it out,” and take on a category you were never set up to run. That’s the answer that turns into 2 a.m. outage calls, telecom tax questions you can’t answer, and a support burden that quietly eats the margin that made phones look attractive in the first place.

So most shops freeze, pick the least-bad option for that particular client, and hope it doesn’t come up again. It always comes up again.

Why it stings more than it should

Here’s the part that makes it worse: voice is exactly the kind of revenue an IT shop is usually starving for.

It’s sticky and recurring. It bills every month whether or not anything breaks. It deepens the relationship instead of resetting it every project. And unlike a one-time hardware sale or a break/fix ticket, it raises the underlying value of your business. Recurring revenue is what buyers pay a multiple for.

Handing that away isn’t a neutral choice. It’s monthly revenue leaving the building, and it’s a competitor holding a warm introduction to your best account. When you say “we don’t do phones,” you’re not declining a headache. You’re declining an annuity and volunteering a lead for someone else.

The problem was never demand

Notice what the problem isn’t. It isn’t that your clients don’t want phones from you. They’re literally asking. It isn’t that voice is unprofitable. It’s some of the best recurring revenue in the building. The demand has been there the whole time.

The problem has always been the ways to say yes. Every route the industry hands a smaller shop comes with a catch: the carrier referral that pays you a crumb and takes your customer, the do-it-yourself build that turns you into a telephone company, the direct white-label platform with an entry fee and minimums built for someone three times your size. Each one forces the same trade: keep the customer or keep it simple, pick one.

That trade is the actual issue. And it’s the thing worth solving, because the next time a client asks “do you guys do phones too?”, the answer shouldn’t have to cost you either your simplicity or your account.

There is a fourth way to answer that question: one where you say yes, keep the customer in writing, and never become a phone company to do it. That’s the subject of the next few posts, and of the free guide below.

Read next: Three ways to say yes to phones, and why each one’s a bad trade.

Greg Steinig is the Vice President of Sales at Spark Services, a 3CX Titanium Partner and RingLogix Master Agent in Muskogee, Oklahoma. He has run hosted voice since 2014 and wrote the VoIP Profit Blueprint.