Four Ways to Increase Your Recurring Revenue

RMR, or recurring monthly revenue is a predictable revenue stream that could help your business grow. For several years, experts have been calling upon dealers and low-voltage installers to incorporate a business model that allows for RMR. Traditionally associated with fire and security companies, RMR is now present in other sectors from AV to Access Control and is being viewed as a viable opportunity for other marketplaces.

Whether you already make recurring revenue from service agreements or monthly monitoring fees, you can improve your success with this business model by considering a few different options.

1. Recurring revenue does not have to be billed monthly

Although RMR suggests a monthly revenue stream, installers and integrators should consider building in their monthly fees or revenue into different offerings.

As monthly billing could potentially require a lot of time and resources, this gives you the option to utilise your time and streamline your process. Rather than billing your customers once a month for maintenance, add the monthly maintenance fee to the cost of the product for your customers. Your customers could pay an agreed one-time fee upfront that covers their maintenance costs for a certain amount of time. You could also consider combining fees into annual or quarterly billing.

One of these offerings would allow you to maximise profit and leverage the benefits of RMR to your business, without adding too many administrative hours to your workload.

3. Offering less-common services like warranties

Just like a consumer electronics retailer sells you a one, two, or three-year warranty on a laptop, you can offer a guarantee on your installation for a monthly, quarterly, or annual fee. Not only does this offer a boost to your RMR, if offers a layer of protection to your customers when it comes to installation and hardware issues. Ensuring your customers systems are well maintained and increasing your recurring monthly revenue offers a win-win situation.

You can also leverage ADI's services for an RMR opportunity when it comes to video surveillance software. You can use software renewal tracking as part of a software agreement with your end users. When you purchase Exacq software for your customers through ADI, we track renewal dates for you for free. This gives you the opportunity to market the service to your customers without doing the actual labour of keeping track of renewal dates.

4. Using third-party contractors can be income-generating

As recurring-revenue opportunities such as maintenance and service agreements often require additional administrative hours and labour, some installers find that contracting the work to a third party is beneficial to their workload.

Although service or maintenance agreements are not common in residential audio and video installations, the opportunity exists for Commercial AV system integrations. Utilising a third-party solution for Pro AV customers can offer you the freedom of subcontracting your labour to ensure your end users have access to a Pro AV professional. Should there be equipment failures or software issues, this type of solution will enable you to keep your guarantee.