Simplifying service offerings for better customer value

Leonardo da Vinci said, "Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication."

This notion is particularly relevant for professional services teams juggling numerous offerings. When you present customers with too many complex choices, they can become confused, decision-making slows down, and frustration builds. In a market where customer experience is paramount, streamlining choices helps ensure they feel empowered and supported—not overwhelmed.

Based on insights from industry experts, this blog will explore practical ways to simplify service offerings. It will focus on helping customers understand their options, make confident decisions, and realize value from their choices. Simplifying doesn’t mean stripping away options; it’s about making the right choices clear and accessible. We'll cover four key areas that contribute to a streamlined experience: education, professional, support, and managed/consulting services.

Customer education services

Customer education services, including training and certification programs, play a critical role in empowering customers to succeed. Simplifying education offerings starts with organizing them by skill level or role, creating a structured learning path with beginner, intermediate, and advanced levels. This approach lets customers quickly pinpoint where they should start and what each step entails. Additionally, bundling courses into packages like "New User Training" or "Expert Certification" provides an intuitive selection process for customers aiming to upskill their teams efficiently.

Rocketlane Academy

At Rocketlane Academy, we design effective learning paths focused on your success in project delivery. Our mission is to boost efficiency by guiding essential skills and strategies to streamline tasks and maximize productivity. With courses tailored to Rocketlane’s capabilities, customers learn to optimize workflows and consistently deliver outstanding results. We offer customization options for select clients, allowing them to tailor content to their needs and track team engagement and certifications—a feature that enhances accountability and skill development across teams.

With structured, accessible learning paths established, the next step in simplifying services is to streamline professional service offerings for ease and clarity.

Professional services

Professional services help customers successfully implement and customize your solution to meet their unique requirements. This includes consulting, implementation, custom development, and integration services.

Simplifying professional services often involves defining clear packages that cover typical needs across different customer types, allowing them to select options that align with their budgets and complexity.

One approach is to categorize packages based on typical customer segments:

• Mid-market package: Ideal for small to medium businesses needing a few standard integrations and minimal customizations.
• Enterprise package: Designed for larger organizations with complex needs, offering additional resources and tailored support.
• Strategic package: Built for strategic accounts with extensive customization needs, offering dedicated project management, consulting, and ongoing support.

Based on these needs, you can create packages such as:

• Silver package: For standard mid-market customers
• Gold package: For larger enterprises
• Platinum package: This is for strategic accounts that require more services.

Customizing beyond standard packages: While these packages will suit most customers, there will always be exceptions. To accommodate this, make it easy for them to customize their packages. You could offer a calculator that allows customers to see the cost of additional integrations or customizations. For example, any additional integrations are priced separately and added to the base package.

This approach simplifies the process for the customer, helping them understand the standard plan they need and any additional costs for customizations.

Example
A starter customer onboarding package for small teams eager to take charge of their onboarding experience can look something like this:

1. Scheduled meetings with the customer onboarding specialist - a series of three will be arranged to ensure a smooth setup process.
2. Access to customer education resources- Customers gain access to your resources, allowing them to familiarize themselves with the tools and features available.
3. Completion of educational assignments- Customers are encouraged to complete them before meetings. A $500 onboarding fee will be waived if these assignments are completed in advance.

To further streamline the service offerings, many companies are turning to a Service Catalog framework.

Service catalog as a framework

To further streamline, Jeroen Bos recommends creating a Service Catalog. This catalog serves as a central reference for all service offerings, allowing customer-facing teams to easily bundle services that match customer needs. For example, offerings could be segmented into Core (free) vs. Premium (paid) tiers or categorized by customer size (e.g., "Corporate" vs. "Enterprise").

With professional services clearly outlined, another critical area for customer satisfaction is support services.

Support services

When it comes to support services, the key is to keep things simple. They often range from basic troubleshooting to advanced technical assistance.
To simplify this category, consider creating tiered support plans that are easy to compare. Instead of offering a wide range of options, focus on just two:

• Standard support: Basic access to support, such as in-app chat or a shared email, suitable for customers who need occasional assistance.
• Premium support: For customers with mission-critical needs, this includes priority access to support channels, proactive monitoring, and dedicated resources.

Enhancing premium support
To make the premium support package more attractive, consider including additional benefits such as:

• Technical account manager: A few hours of dedicated support from a technical account manager.
• Resource availability: Priority access to resources or consultants.
• Consulting hours: Regular sessions to review issues, track the status of those problems, and engage more proactively with the customer.

By simplifying support offerings with distinct packages, you can help customers identify the best-fit plan for their needs and justify the value of upgrading to premium.

Example support packages

As Alex Connell from Zift notes, customers value straightforward support options that reduce approval bottlenecks. Zift implemented a tiered pricing structure—15% for standard, 20% for silver, 25% for gold, and 30% for platinum—tying each tier to an inclusive service level. Internally, costs are allocated based on timesheets, ensuring efficiency without overwhelming the customer with choices.

Building long-term customer success requires ongoing value delivery and adaptability. To support this, simplifying managed and consulting services is crucial.

Managed services or Consulting services

Managed services provide ongoing, proactive management of a customer’s environment, allowing them to focus on core activities. This can include monitoring, optimization, reporting, and even full management of certain functions to ensure customers get peak performance and timely updates without handling these tasks themselves.

Key levels of managed services may include:

• Basic Monitoring: Real-time system monitoring and reporting to ensure stability and reliability, often coupled with incident alerts.
• Optimization Services: Regular check-ins and optimization sessions to ensure systems are running efficiently, with resources allocated where needed.
• Fully Managed Services: Comprehensive management of certain tasks (e.g., system administration, optimization) to ensure continuous performance and provide a seamless customer experience.

Streamlining managed service choices

For example, customers with larger, complex setups may benefit from a full-service managed plan where a dedicated team monitors their system, optimizes resources, and performs proactive updates. In contrast, smaller clients might prefer a more hands-off monitoring package.

Managed services can cater to varying needs by clearly defining each tier’s benefits, while maintaining clarity and simplicity.

Managed services deliver ongoing support, while the Service Catalog brings everything together into a cohesive strategy that reflects the company’s goals.

Simplifying service offerings across different categories not only clarifies options but also enhances the customer experience. Clear and accessible choices empower customers to make decisions with confidence, streamlining their path to realizing value.

Whether through structured learning paths, tiered support, or tailored managed services, the end goal remains the same: make it easy for customers to achieve their desired outcomes.

‍Ready to streamline your offerings and boost customer satisfaction?
Explore how Rocketlane can help you achieve these goals with our comprehensive, customer-focused approach to service delivery.

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