The best phone system for IT services firms and managed service providers
Placing a consultant and opening an account run on the same lever: the number of useful conversations.
Hundreds of companies use 
to make every call pay off
The situation
What holds you back today
IT directors are almost impossible to reach
Consultants on the bench need placing quickly
Delivery work eats the prospecting time
The answer
What Skipcall changes
Specific to your industry
Who to call inside an IT department, and in what order
Aiming at the IT director and stopping there is the surest way never to move. In a mid-sized account, several people each hold part of the subject: the one who lives with the problem, the one who holds the budget, the one who decides whether a new supplier is allowed to sign at all. None of them can conclude alone.
The manager who lives with the gap
Head of Infrastructure, IT Operations Manager, Service Delivery Manager or Head of Information Security, depending on the subject. This is the person who describes the requirement in terms you can use, and who knows whether your call has landed at the right moment. It is almost always the right first call, because they have a direct interest in the subject moving.
The IT director arbitrates, they do not discover
A CIO or IT director rarely agrees to discover a supplier on the phone, but they do decide between cases their teams have already worked up. Calling one usefully means being able to name the person on their team who has seen the subject, and talking scope, timescale and commitment rather than technology.
Procurement decides who is allowed to sign
In larger organisations, professional services go through a preferred supplier list and a master services agreement. Without being on the list, the IT department cannot give you work even when it wants to. In the public sector the same barrier is a Crown Commercial Service framework: a buyer running a compliant procurement cannot award to a supplier who is not on the lot. Ask about the supplier list and the next refresh window by the second conversation, and you avoid working a case for months that could never have closed.
Business units fund, IT governs
Extra capacity on a finance, logistics or HR project is often paid out of that department's budget, with IT only signing off on the rules. Those budgets free up on a different rhythm from the annual IT plan, which opens a door precisely when the plan is already committed.
The incumbent prime when you are subcontracting
On accounts covered by a framework or a master agreement, your real client is not the IT department but the incumbent supplier. The useful contact becomes the resourcing manager at that prime, and your calling rhythm follows their team gaps rather than the end account's.
One account therefore takes three or four conversations with different people before a decision exists at all. That is what makes the number of useful conversations matter more than the number of calls made.
The script
Opening an IT account and placing a consultant
Two calls in one script, because an IT services firm makes both in the same day: the manager living with the gap at an end client, and the resourcing manager at a prime holding the lot. You are not calling to introduce your company, you are calling to find out whether a team is short right now.
The opening to a head of infrastructure or operations
“[First name], [name] from [company]. I am not going to introduce the company. We work on [scope or technology], and I am trying to find out one thing: have you got a team that is short at the moment, or a piece of work that is dragging for lack of hands?”
The manager living with the gap has a direct interest in the subject moving, unlike the IT director, who decides between cases already worked up by their teams.
If they say it has to go through procurement
“That is exactly what I want to know. Who owns the professional services supplier list, and when does the next window to get on it open? If we are not on the list I would rather find out now than in six months.”
Asking about the supplier list, or about the framework and lot in the public sector, by the second conversation saves you working a case for months that could never have been awarded.
If they say they already have a supplier
“Good, that means the subject is covered. My question is about the peaks: when your incumbent cannot produce the profile in time, what do you do?”
On an account covered by a framework, the useful contact is not the IT department but the prime's resourcing team. This answer tells you which of the two to call next.
The call to a prime's resourcing manager, for a consultant on the bench
“[First name], I have a [profile] free from [date], on [technologies], already delivered in [type of client]. Have you got an open role they fit? If not I will not take any more of your time.”
Present the consultant by the gap they fill, in two sentences, not by their CV. A resourcing manager sorts on the open role.
If they ask the rate before looking at the CV
“[Amount] a day on site in [city]. I am giving you that before you open the CV so we do not lose the day if it is outside budget.”
Closing when there is nothing
“Agreed, this is not the moment. Two questions and I will leave you: when does your support contract come up for renewal, and who else on your side owns [subject]?”
A renewal date and the name of a second person are worth more than a courtesy meeting: they are what drives the next follow-up.
At Skipcall, every call is recorded, transcribed and summarised, so the script gets corrected against what your reps actually say rather than what we imagine they say.
Avoid this
Three mistakes this industry makes on the phone
The mistake
Going for the IT director first and reading them the company catalogue.
Do this instead
Start with the head of infrastructure, operations or support who lives with the gap, then call the IT director naming the person on their team who has seen the subject, and talk scope, timescale and commitment rather than technology.
The mistake
Prospecting in bursts, whenever a consultant lands on the bench, and stopping the moment they are placed.
Do this instead
Hold a short, regular calling session even when delivery is busy. Accounts do not reopen on the rhythm of your bench, and every stop restarts the prospecting from a cold list.
The mistake
Finding out an assignment is ending on the day the consultant comes back to the office.
Do this instead
Call the client's manager several weeks before the end date. An extension of scope gets decided faster than a first engagement with a new client, and the bench period never starts.
Frequently asked questions, IT services & managed services
Other industries that prospect by phone
See all 25 industries →Cybersecurity
A narrow, heavily solicited target: get more attempts in without degrading the conversation.
Telecoms & Operators
You sell telecoms: prospect with the most effective tool on the market.
Web, SEO & marketing agencies
Selling time in an agency is whatever is left over: make it ten times more productive.
See what it does on your own lists
A demo runs on your own contacts, not on a sample data set.
Personalized demonstration