If you are not yet providing website maintenance as freelancer or a small agency and want to offer 24×7 website support services to earn recurring revenue, this blog article is just for you.
I am going to show you the process I am following to offer 24×7 care plans to my existing customers. Even though I am just a one-person show with a VA at this point. There is absolutely no need to hire staff if you want to provide website maintenance. You can still enjoy the freedom of working alone.
That is exactly where I started in my journey of building multiple recurring revenue streams. And today, I am earning residual income from a few maintenance clients. Frankly, I am focusing on the WP Agency Summit now and thus do not have many maintenance clients. But they contribute to my bottom line and that it was matters in the end.
The Mindset Shift I Went Through
The biggest barrier I had to overcome was wrapping my head around working with white-label partners. I was afraid that by handing off the communication with my client to another service provider, I would lose touch with my client.
My fear was that the quality of communication from the white-label partner was noticeably worse to my own (because we all do best what we do, right?). You know what happens when a client doesn’t receive clear communication – they eventually will stop working with you. And that is obviously the last thing you want to happen.
But on the other hand, I also knew that I had to build more income streams and that my business desperately needed residual income. Providing website maintenance as a freelancer just seemed like the best way to start another revenue source. In fact, the WP Buffs did two webinars about this topic that you can catch in their virtual booth linked below. Let me also embed the conversation with their COO Nick Adams about the Keys to Scaling Your MRR here:
Evaluating white-label maintenance service providers
So, I took the leap and started evaluating white-label support partners. That was two years ago and I did not regret this decision. Here are the criteria I evaluated the white-label companies against:
- Proven track-record of quality work.
- Exceptional communication skills in written form.
- Timely response times (if you are waiting for responses during pre-sales conversations already, do not expect the support staff to reply quicker.)
- Straight-forward onboarding for my client’s websites.
I ended up working with WP Buffs and I am glad that I did. Without the WP Buffs, I would not be earning a bit of residual income every month.
Looking around the market now, there are countless white-label partners you can work with. I just tested WP Buffs because I knew their founder Joe Howard and they met the criteria.
Thankfully, their onboarding process was super easy. I just had to set up an email address for their team so that they can communicate under my branding and hand over the keys to the customer’s websites.
Obviously, I confirmed this step with the customers beforehand, telling them that I was bringing on a team to deliver better service. By being transparent about you bringing on a team, you can avoid confusion for your clients. Also, you demonstrate being proactive, which is a trait most companies will appreciate. You also like service providers who take active measures to improve their service, right?
If you want to give WP Buffs a test drive, here is the link to their white-label program.
I can also introduce you to Chris Hughes from Mint WP or Emily Hunkler from GoWP – both are white-label providers I only hear good things about.
Takeaways From Providing Website Maintenance As Freelancer
The most important takeaway for me was, that white-label partners do exceptional work and helped me stay in touch with my customers. Despite being afraid of providing website maintenance as freelancer without having my own staff, the service is actually working very smoothly. If I wanted to, I could build a business around providing website maintenance services. I could just focus on selling maintenance plans without having to provide the actual service. But that clashes with my passion for hosting virtual events.
It is beautiful to know my clients are taken care of by a professional white-label team while I can focus on hosting virtual summits. That is exactly the idea I have of building multiple income streams. And who knows, maybe I will find the time to set up a dedicated funnel for selling website maintenance plans. At least, I do have the Funnel Pack for selling WordPress Care Plans already. That would actually make setting up the funnel very straightforward.
I hope this post shows you that it is possible to offer website maintenance plans as a freelancer. You don’t need staff to provide 24×7 support for your clients. You can (and probably should) leverage white-label partners like WP Buffs to start selling care plans if you aren’t already.
Instead of handing over the website and then letting go of the customer, they are staying in touch with you and your white-label team. For me, this has led to better relationships with my clients and follow-up projects that I likely would not have gotten otherwise.
How To Take Action Today
Please let this post inspire you to take action. If you aren’t sure about how all this works, simply head over to the WP Buffs virtual booth on this website and schedule a call with them. Having a conversation can’t hurt but might show you a new opportunity.
If you just have one client you are building a site for right now, consider selling them on a maintenance plan. Especially if you have not done that already – you will thank me in a couple of months 😉
All the best,
Jan
