Differentiate Your Online Backup Service from Competitors

Working on the frontlines with MSPs, I am constantly coming across inspirational success stories and taking note of the specific steps they took to arrive at their goals. Some have grown from a one-person shop into a trusted regional provider, while others have carved out a profitable niche by focusing on a particular vertical like healthcare, legal, or financial services. By paying attention to what worked (and what clearly didn’t), I’ve gathered quite a list of practical “do’s & don’ts” over the years for those offering managed IT services.

These real-world lessons always come in handy as I speak with new and upcoming MSPs who often ask me the all‑important question: “What can I do to separate myself from the competition?” It’s usually asked in the context of tight margins, aggressive pricing from larger players, and customers who are still learning how to evaluate providers.

The answer,  however, is hidden within the question itself. You don’t win by trying to match the scale or anonymity of the big players—you win by being different in ways your clients actually care about. Offer your customers something they cannot get from the faceless industry giants: personalized guidance, proactive communication, visible proof that their backups and security are under control, and a relationship with a provider who understands their business as well as their technology.

First and foremost, it's important to recognize that an MSP that tries to be everything to everyone will find it very difficult to succeed, especially with limited resources while starting out. We talk a little bit about the challenge of meeting customer expectations in an upcoming blog post. Look for themes and commonalities in the types of customers that are naturally attracted to your services, and speak with existing clients to understand how they found you. This should provide you with some insight into how you may be able to specialize as you progress.

The next logical question is - what can you offer existing clients that will provide them with an impressive degree of personalization, compassion, and a greater sense of security? (These are key elements that endear clients and build long-term relationships.)

Opportunities for Differentiation

As a provider of managed backup services, one thing you can start today is adhering to a set schedule in which client backups are reviewed and tested. This gives you a recurring opportunity to understand client needs, maintain client satisfaction, and offer some key industry differentiators such as:

Transparency

Customers are investing in your services to protect their critical data. Transparency creates trust and a sense of accountability. Make sure clients clearly understand your testing schedule and procedures to give them faith in their backup integrity. Be explicit about what is tested (files, applications, virtual machines, entire systems), how often tests are performed, and what “success” looks like in terms of restore times and data validation.

Transparency should extend to all branches within your business, from pricing structure to how you manage data, to how you handle exceptions and failed jobs. This encourages customers to stick around, and may even attract some new ones who are dissatisfied with providers that keep them in the dark.

Health Checks

Schedule regular health checks between your IT support team and the client. These can be structured quarterly or monthly reviews that look beyond simple “green checkmarks” to evaluate the overall health of the backup environment. Consider how regular health checks can pinpoint weak spots in areas such as compliance (for example, HIPAA or GDPR retention requirements), productivity (slow recovery points that impact users), storage utilization, and backup strategy (gaps in coverage for critical workloads like SQL, Exchange, VMware, or Microsoft 365).

Not only are health checks good for catching problems early and making improvements, but they also offer a unique opportunity to strengthen relationships and show the client that their investment in you has added value. Over time, these check‑ins position you as a strategic advisor, not just a vendor running jobs in the background.

Reports

Your business should be providing the client with reports that deliver clear, actionable information, such as backup statistics, success and failure rates, storage trends, and when backups and restore tests have last been reviewed. Include details on RPO (how much data they stand to lose between backups) and RTO (how long it would take to get key systems back online), and tie these metrics directly to the client’s business applications and SLAs. This helps MSPs maintain a consistent presence and set client expectations when it comes to achieving RTO and RPO recovery goals.

With standardized, easy‑to‑read reports—ideally branded and delivered on a regular cadence—the client can quickly see that backups are monitored, tested, and aligned with their business needs. In the event of a disaster, the customer only needs to glance at the current report to understand what data is immediately restorable, how recent that data is, and what to expect during the recovery process.

When it comes time to renew that contract for managed backup, the customer should feel good about it. They'll know that their MSP has their back with an ongoing process in place that ensures backup restorability and data continuity. Work with the NovaBACKUP MSP team to implement a backup testing process that helps set you apart from the cloud backup competition.