Hybrid Client Intake Model leads to 50% reduction in Churn
Article highlights:
Why a great MSP is a lot like Chick-fil-A
Best point of contact for new Client requests?
Introducing the Hybrid Intake Process
The best client experience for Managed Service Client End-Users
The Single Point of Contact (SPoC) for Everyone Else is…
Managed Service Client Service Desk Liaison
Non-Managed Service Client End-Users
Logistics: How do you put it all together?
A burning question for your MSP
Have you ever eaten at a Chick-fil-A? They have a team commitment to creating a customer “moment” with honor, dignity, and respect for all - without working on a Sunday. And they move cars through their drive-through faster than the Millennium Falcon on the Kessel run.
For Our Clients who look a lot like the legendary Chick-fil-A, with the same commitment and attention to quality, efficiency, and “the moment.” Have enjoyed a 50% reduction in Churn by building a better Client Experience. That amazing Client moment starts when the Client contacts the MSP, so you can see why it’s very important to get that initial contact right.
That’s why we’re asked all the time if it is best to have billable or non-billable Employees be the point of contact for new Client requests. The debate goes back and forth, with pros and cons on both sides of the conversation.
In 2018, we had a Client experiment to see what worked best. They moved from using Non-Billable team members handling Client contacts to Billable team members. Then they decided to move back to Non-Billable Employees taking all the calls and creating all the tickets. For them, there was no right answer. It was a matter of the strength of the Employees at the time they needed to make the intake process decision.
However, our own research and years of working with MSPs says the Best-in-Class answer is both. We call it the “Hybrid Intake Process”, which leverages the pros of having Techs answer the phone and email and the pros of having a Service Coordinator create, review, and assign the requests. Here is how it works:
Billable:
For Managed Service Client End-Users, the best Client experience is direct access to a Help Desk/Level 1 Technician. So, they should be given:
an email address
phone number
a chat agent on their computer, so they have direct access to a Technician
Most of their requests are the simple, quick-hit type of Client requests; therefore, they receive an expedited response with very little overhead for the MSP. The Managed Service Client also gets the End-User back up and productive in a very short period (think Chick-fil-A drive-thru) – therefore, it is a win-win-win.
Non-Billable:
For everyone else, the Single Point of Contact (SPoC) should be the Service Coordinator.
Managed Service Client Service Desk Liaison:
The Service Desk point of contact on the Client side should reach out to the Service Coordinator because, most likely, the request they are calling about is not a single End-User issue but an issue that impacts several employees and/or the whole network.
In this case, it is most likely that the skill set needed is not a Help Desk/Level 1 but a Network Engineering II or higher. Since these people are usually working on I/M/A/Cs or Projects, it is in the best interest of everyone not to disrupt them. In this case, contacting the Service Coordinator provides the best Client Experience. The Service Coordinator becomes the champion for the Client within the MSPs organization; whatever the Client’s Liaison needs can be tracked down and assigned by the Service Coordinator.
Non-Managed Service Client End-User:
This is a no-brainer. They are not paying for expedited service; therefore, they should not receive it. Part of receiving “Best Effort” service is that the work is scheduled (we use the term scheduled loosely) after Managed Service Client’s End Users have been taken care of. The best way to do that is for the Service Coordinator to review the workload on the Help Desk/Level 1 Techs and review and assign the work to the one with the right skill set and most availability.
Logistics:
How do you do this? Simple, by providing different contact info for the Managed Service Clients’ End-Users than the Liaisons or non-Managed Service Clients.
The direct line to the Help Desk and Help@ email address is provided on mouse pads or some other company SWAG for the Managed Service Client End-Users. The Managed Service Client End-Users also have an agent (think Splashtop) on their work computers.
The Liaison and non-Managed Service Clients have the Service Coordinators’ phone number and Support@ email address.
This hybrid model has worked well with several of Advanced Global’s Clients, and the SLA data in the high 90s% is the quantified results to back up the claim – this is the “Best-in-Class” Client request intake model. Properly set up, your managed Clients will feel like they have been given a Fast Pass to their favorite amusement park.
Now for the Burning Question…
What about your MSP? When your Clients contact your Support Team, do they feel like they are stuck waiting in the busiest McDonald’s drive-thru in the city at lunch time – or do they experience the “my pleasure” of Chick-fil-A?
If you were your Client, would you want to wait in line for help from your MSP? If not, are you ready for the next step – to know what you do not know about leveraging Autotask? Schedule a Call, and we will get you on the road to finding out.
The elephant in the room:
Who is Advanced Global, and why should we listen to them?
Recently someone we’ve been in communication with since DattoCon 2018, who was faithfully reading our articles, commented that up until a few months ago, “I really did not know what Advanced Global does.” So here are a few bullet points to let anyone interested know who we are and what we do:
1) We Are – the Autotask Global Service Delivery Authority
2) We Help – MSPs thrive
3) We Solve – Service Delivery issues, inefficiencies, and challenges by making sure:
a. Techs know what to work on next
b. Someone is managing all open tickets and driving them to completion
c. The staffing levels are correct, and the workload is balanced
d. Real-Time Time Entry is a cultural habit
e. The Client has a great client experience
f. Profit is maximized
g. Autotask is being fully leveraged
h. The historical data that is in the Autotask software is accessible to benchmark, track & USE effectively
i. The Service Delivery operations can scale
j. Projects are completed On-Time and On-Budget
k. The Company can grow
l. MSPs know what they don’t know
4) Our Tools:
a. Autotask “Best in Class” standard build
b. Our MSP robust Service Delivery SOP library
c. Advanced Live Reports
d. Expertise in providing a transformational experience
Note: We are not philosophers; we are doers with 31+ years of Service Delivery experience, bringing real Service Delivery Improvement change, profitability, and Best in Class performance.
We start by offering a No-Obligation PSA Configuration Evaluation.