Get out of My Way! Your Service Coordinator is Begging You!

Welcome back, Autotask Warriors!  It’s so great to see you again.  By this point in the series, anyone implementing even half of what we’ve discussed here this year should be seeing noticeable gains in your MSP’s productivity, Client satisfaction, Tech happiness, and (here’s that word you’re not supposed to use in public) Profit.  Of course, I hope you’ve implemented everything and are well on your way to retirement and buying that private island. If you aren’t seeing measurable gains, then please reach out ASAP so my team can get involved: info@agmspcoaching.com 

So on to our fun adventure for the week

First, Matt wanted me to mention the last article on MSP staff mental health. We were floored that there were two cybersecurity sessions at ChannelCon on mental issues that are more and more prevalent in the IT service community and want to make sure we give a platform to some of that excellent information. This is a serious problem, so PLEASE go read last week’s article as the resources provided could save a life. 

Speaking of Matt, he was reading through some back articles in our exclusive Gladiator Community and came across one about “Empowering a Service Coordinator.” He asked me to reprint some of the information here as he strongly believes that if people will just get out of the Service Coordinators way, much Chaos can be avoided (hence the title of this article).  Since we’ve spent so much time talking about the Service Manager this year and some of the Service Coordinator’s work it seemed like a good idea. 

Let’s talk about Chaos 

Do you know what Chaos Theory is? Wikipedia has a very long description that will make your head hurt, but this one line on the page best covers it: “Chaos theory states that within the apparent randomness of chaotic complex systems, there are underlying patterns, interconnections, constant feedback loops, repetition, self-similarity, fractals, and self-organization.” Sounds like the workings of an MSP to me. If you’ve been reading this column for long, you know I’ve written extensively on how to remove Chaos from the MSP, and that’s what my dedicated team of MSP Coaches work on every day. 

According to Matt, we should think of the Service Coordinator as your favorite science-fiction time traveler (Dr. Who, perhaps) or navigator (think slipstream in the show Andromeda), riding the rails of interconnections within the Chaos to drive tickets from creation to timely resolution.  And just like no one on the USS Discovery would dream of getting in the way of Lt. Commander Stamets while navigating through the mycelial network, we shouldn’t get in the Service Coordinator’s way when the smooth operation of the MSP depends on them. 

Chaos reigns in an MSP for two key reasons: 

  1. No one person knows where every ticket is in the journey from New to Complete 

  2. No one person knows where every person is within the organization 

Now for small Tech Shops, this is no big deal – all the tickets are in one queue, one Tech is on-site, and the other one is off today. But for larger shops of 4 Techs or more, the problem increases logarithmically with growth. 

Enter the Star of the Show: The Service Coordinator 

The hub of any well-run MSP is the Service Coordinator position. 

A good Service Coordinator: 

  • takes ownership of every open ticket, driving them from New to Completion. 

  • knows where all the Techs are and what is on their plate for the day 

So, how is that possible when Chaos reigns?  

Easy. Chaos reigns because the Service Coordinator does not know where all the Techs are and what they are doing that day. 

Once the systems are put in place so the Service Coordinator can do their job, Chaos will be driven out of the organization, and the Service Delivery Team will be working in a Zen environment – and yes, Advanced Global can guarantee these results. 

Nirvana starts with hiring the right person for the job. There are three key components involved: 

  1. The Ideal Team Player 

  2. Onboarding and Training 

  3. Empowering, tooling, and getting out of their way 

The Ideal Team Player

The Ideal Team Player hiring process focuses on hiring a Service Coordinator with three key qualities/characteristics: 

  1. Humility 

  2. Hungry 

  3. People Smart 

Humility 

In the case of a Service Coordinator, this means not focusing on the volume of work, responsibilities, or issues that need to be resolved but actively: 

  1. Taking ownership of all open tickets, Techs’ Workload, and Techs’ schedules. 

  2. Driving a great high quality intake review and assignment process. 

  3. Driving all Stuck Tickets from New to Complete. 

When we talk about Techs’ schedules, we use the term loosely. We do not limit the focus to calendar, but also, what is in their Ready to Engage widget, Waiting widget, and Backlog List of Tickets.  

Hungry 

Hungry is wanting to lean into the job - not just taking on the workload to “get it done” - but also having a strong desire to learn and grow. The ideal person wants to continually discover more efficient ways of getting the work done, both for themselves as well as the Techs they serve. It also means being committed to providing Superior Service to the Clients the MSP serves. 

People Smart 

People Smart means knowing when to hold a Tech accountable to get the work done as expected, and also knowing when to back off and respect the skills the Tech brings to the table, along with what it takes for them to meet their responsibilities. 

Onboarding and Training

Once hired, very few Service Coordinators can independently carve out and be effective with their responsibilities. Very few have a sixth sense of what they need, how to get it, and how to leverage those resources to drive all Open Tickets from New to Complete. Most newly hired Service Coordinators (and ones struggling in their position) need the company to provide them with an onboarding process and Service Coordinator training for them to succeed. 

The onboarding process requires three things: 

  1. An overview of the organization, including meeting as many people as possible. This way, they will know who in the organization they can turn to for help busting through the roadblocks they encounter. Hint: this may take a week or two depending on the size of the organization. 

  2. An overview of their space, tools provided to them, and the Team they are assigned to, including any mentor or non-direct manager in a matrix organizational structure. 

  3. A copy of their Job Description, Role and Responsibilities, and an overview of expectations of the position. 

Training comes in two flavors: 

  1. Tools - mostly the PSAutomation software. 

  2. Processes – mostly the “Best in Class” Service Delivery SOPs that provide them with the knowhow to drive all tickets from “New” to Completion.” 

Empowering, tooling, and getting out of their way 

The Service Coordinator / Dispatcher is the hub of the company. If this person does not handle the Service Coordinator / Dispatcher job, no matter what the rest of the Team does, the Customer will be disappointed, and Chaos will reign. The process to get there involves: 

  1. Empowering 

  2. Tooling 

  3. Getting Out of Their Way 

Empowering

The Service Coordinator must be the Single Point of Coordination (SPoC). This includes the authority and responsibility to review and assign all requests (with oversight as necessary), and they also must have total control of the Tech’s calendar and work schedule. Yes, the Techs and maybe the Owner can have input, but the Service Coordinator needs to conduct the orchestra. 

Service Coordinator / Dispatcher daily duties should be reviewed, adjusted if needed, and accepted. The Service Coordinator / Dispatcher is one of three Autotask Application/System Admins and needs to know how to maintain the Dashboards, WFRs, and Holiday Sets in Autotask, as well as Renew Live Report Schedules and give Client Portal access.  

Tooling

  1. Process Systems: 

    1. Single Point of Coordination 

    2. A “Best in Class” intake process 

      1.  Segmenting all Requests into well-defined workflows 

      2. Review and assign all tickets 

      3.  Depending on the workflow 

  2. Adding the ticket to the Ready to Engage widget 

  3. Adding the ticket to the Tech’s Calendars (Hint: use TimeZest) 

    1. Daily morning 15-minute huddle 

  4. Three Service Coordinator Dashboards 

  5. Leveraging the Advanced Autotask Live Reports 

Getting Out of Their Way

Getting out of the way of the right person in the right Service Coordinator seat is easy: 

  1. Change YOUR Mindset. The Service Coordinator: 

    1. Is the hub of the organization 

    2. They are the Single Point of Coordination 

    3. They own the Techs’ schedules 

  2. Trust them to do the job: 

    1. Evaluate their performance 

    2. Empower them to do their job 

    3. Coach, Mentor, and Support them 

    3. Focus on your own MSP responsibilities, which are: 

    1. Owner – go sell something 

    2. Tech – work on the next Client request 

    3. Project Mgr. – Finish the project on time and on budget 

    4. Service Mgr. – continuous improvement of the Team and Individual performance 

Conclusion 

MSPs have a lot of goals when it comes to Service Delivery. You want optimized efficiency, you want happy clients with great SLA numbers, you want happy Techs rocking out tickets, and you’d like to make some money along the way. An essential element in achieving many of these goals is an empowered, hungry, and trained Service Coordinator that is allowed and encouraged to be the hub of the organization and eliminate our dreaded enemy, Chaos.  

This means GETTING OUT OF THE SERVICE CORDINATOR’ S WAY! They are begging you to let them do their jobs and eliminate Chaos. But they can’t do it alone. They do need your help. If that seems impossible at your organization, or you’ve been working on it for 2, 5, 10 years, or more with no results, then it’s time to break the glass, pull the alarm handle, and contact our team of Chaos Killers. We will be happy to guide you to Nirvana within a year. Email us today, and we will be on our way! 

(By the way, if you enjoyed this article from our Gladiator’s Community, you should become a member. This will get you access to this and many more resources, as well as exclusive access to me and my team. 

 

Steve & Co   

 

Stephen Buyzemsp, Service Coordinator