Homesectorsit services

Research For IT Services Providers

In a crowded market, understanding what your clients really think is your sharpest competitive edge.

IT service providers and managed service providers operate in one of the most competitive and fast-moving B2B environments there is. Client expectations are rising, contracts are hard-won, and switching costs are lower than you'd like. You're often judged not just on technical performance, but on responsiveness, communication, and the feeling of being truly looked after.

Yet many IT service providers still rely on gut feel, anecdotal feedback, or annual NPS scores that raise more questions than they answer. If you're looking to genuinely understand what keeps your clients loyal - and what puts them at risk - we can help. Get in touch to discuss how a tailored customer research programme can support your business.

Turning Client Feedback Into Competitive Advantage

At TLF Research, we help IT service providers and MSPs go beyond surface metrics to understand what really drives client satisfaction, retention, and growth.

Our approach uncovers:

  • What clients value most - and where you're falling short

  • The gap between how your team thinks you're performing and how clients actually experience your service

  • The emotional and rational factors behind renewal decisions and referrals

  • Early warning signals before a client starts looking elsewhere

Because in managed services, the contract renewal conversation starts long before the renewal date.

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IT Services / MSPs Intro Meeting

Book an intro meeting using our online calendar to discuss your requirements and objectives and determine how our research can help.

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The challenges we can help you solve


Multiple Contacts, Mixed Messages

At your key accounts, the IT director, the finance lead, and the day-to-day users often have very different experiences of your service. We help you capture the full picture across the stakeholder map, so no critical perspective is missed.

Clients Who Say They're Happy - Then Leave

Satisfaction scores don't always predict loyalty. We help you understand the deeper drivers of client retention, identifying the accounts that are genuinely committed and those that are quietly disengaged - before it's too late.

The Service Delivery Blind Spot

Your helpdesk stats look good, but how do clients actually feel about the experience? We design transactional and relationship research that connects operational data to client perception, revealing where process performance and experience diverge.


Competing on More Than Price

When prospects and clients struggle to differentiate between MSPs, price becomes the deciding factor. Research helps you clearly identify - and then articulate - the ways you genuinely outperform the competition on what matters most.

Growing Accounts and Winning Referrals

Your existing clients are your best source of new business - but only if you know what drives their advocacy. We help you identify the conditions that produce loyal advocates and turn satisfaction into active referral behaviour.

Onboarding and Transition Risk

The early months of a new client relationship are make-or-break. Research at key milestones helps you spot friction in the onboarding experience before it shapes long-term perceptions.

IT Services Research

Strategic Relationship Surveys
Tactical End User Surveys
Key Account Reviews
NPS, CSAT and customer effort
Onboarding and milestone research
Lapsed Client and Exit Surveys
Qualitative Depth Interviews
Customer Success and Centricity
Client Journey Mapping
Culture Change and Communications
Competitive Positioning & Benchmarking
Training and Workshops

Research that reaches the right people

From Insight to Stronger Client Relationships


In IT services, the person who signed the contract and the person who logs the support ticket often have very different views of your business. We help you gather insight from:

  • Senior decision-makers and IT directors

  • Finance and procurement contacts

  • Day-to-day users and operational contacts

  • Lapsed clients and prospects who chose a competitor

By combining these perspectives, we give you a complete, connected view of how your service is experienced across the client organisation.


We're not just a research agency. Our goal isn't simply to measure satisfaction - it's to help you:

  • Identify at-risk accounts before they become churned clients

  • Strengthen strategic relationships and grow existing accounts

  • Differentiate your proposition based on what clients genuinely value

  • Align your internal teams around the client experience that matters most

We act as an extension of your team, building research programmes that evolve with your business and deliver measurable commercial impact.

Measuring Customer Satisfaction in the IT Services Sector

Free On-Demand Webinar

Watch this IT Services sector webinar on-demand now.

In this webinar we discuss customer satisfaction within the IT services / MSP sector and how to measure overall client satisfaction - including decision makers and end users. Their needs and customer requirements are very different, it is important that a research programme captures all the relevant feedback to help inform decisions on how to increase your client satisfaction.

TLF Research Client Director, Greg Roche will show you how customer research can give you the right feedback from all your clients' stakeholders, and how the right balance of tactical and strategic surveys will deliver the insight that will allow you to take action.

Register to watch this webinar now.

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Ask Us For Ideas

Satisfaction levels stagnating? Struggling to drive change? Contact us for ideas on how customer research can help your business.

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Using NPS in the IT Services Sector

Net Promoter Score (NPS) is probably the most widespread metric in the world of customer research, and a popular one in the IT Services sector. It’s a good fit for the industry, but there are some specific considerations that organisations in this field should think about when choosing NPS for their surveys. It’s important to look beyond the measure itself to ensure that your programme gives you the insight you need to drive change.

In this article we’ll discuss some best practices.


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Who We've Worked With

We work with a wide range of customer focused organisations in many sectors.

Managed IT Service Providers – Driving Actions From Your Client Surveys

Free On-Demand Webinar

Watch this IT Services sector webinar on-demand now.

Client surveys are an essential tool for any Managed Service Provider wanting to improve their customer experience, but how do you turn this customer feedback into business change and increased profitability?

TLF Research Client Director, Greg Roche will show you how to ensure your customer research drives actions within your business, changes staff behaviours and embeds a customer centric culture. In this practical webinar you’ll leave with plenty of best practice ideas, useful techniques, and real examples within the IT sector of how customer satisfaction can increase the profitability of your business.

Register to watch this webinar now.

Watch Webinar

Strategic, tactical, & ad-hoc research

We understand that not all organisations need our full service offer and we're happy to be able to work on standalone projects to meet your needs. These include:

  • CX Strategy design

  • Research planning

  • Questionnaire design

  • Data Collection only (telephone, online by email or SMS, face to face and postal)

  • Depth interviews and key account reviews

  • Analysis and Reporting (Including validating existing research)

  • Communications for feeding back survey results to customers and colleagues

  • Workshop facilitation for action planning etc,

  • Customer journey mapping

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From the CX Insights Hub

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Training Course

Customer Journey Mapping - On-Demand Course

Customer Journey Mapping is a useful tool that can bring together customer research and insight, service design, and process improvement. This course will give you the knowledge and skills you need to use journey mapping in your own organisation.

Magazine

Starling Bank: Something that you Feel

They may be a challenger brand, but Starling have ambitions to build a “grown up” bank based on lasting relationships with their customers. Here’s how they’re going about it.

Magazine

Closing the Expectation Gap

Two experts from NICE share the findings of a recent survey about customers’ perceptions, underlining the importance of getting the digital experience right.

Magazine

Mitie Case Study

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Get In Touch

We'd love to have a friendly chat about your business and share our knowledge of research within the IT Services Sector. Whether you're new to customer research and would like to pick our brains, or if you have a project in mind and would like some ball-park costs, please get in touch.

Get In Touch