Managing Service Coordinators: A Service Manager’s #2 Responsibility (Part Deux)
Greetings, intrepid Autotask user. Welcome to another article masterclass on MSP profitability, where you’ll learn all about:
Chickens, idiots, and confusion – not at your MSP!
2 key parts of the Service Delivery process
A quick recap before we dive in
Leverage these 5 Advanced Autotask Live Reports
Weekly meetings with the Service Coordinator – why?
Next steps: a FREE, No-Obligation PSA Configuration Evaluation
Have you ever seen the classic 1993 Charlie Sheen movie Hot Shots Part Deux? Then you know what it’s like to see something that sounds a lot like the first one, gets confusing, is full of idiots, and you’re left trying to figure out why you laughed so hard at the chicken scene.
There are no chickens, no idiots, and (hopefully) no confusion here. We are all about eliminating Chaos and running a healthy, profitable MSP.
To get there, we need the right arrows in our quiver to track, monitor, and improve service delivery. (We can’t just load up a chicken when we run out of arrows).
Two key parts of the Service Delivery process are the Service Coordinator and the Service Manager – they are the focus of our time this week.
Last week we started the conversation on:
How a Service Manager can coach/mentor a Service Coordinator from a positive collaboration perspective and hold them accountable.
Using Autotask Dashboards to display key metrics that show whether they are doing an excellent job or not.
In this article, we dive into how Advanced Autotask Live Reports tool up a Service Manager to meet their #2 responsibility. (In case you missed it, a Service Manager’s #1 responsibility is driving profits).
First, here’s a quick recap from last week:
Your Service Manager should be taking ownership of these three things. If they are not, you need to fire them or at least get them some guidance on their Role and Responsibilities.
A Service Manager is responsible for:
Holding the Service Coordinator accountable for doing their job as expected
Holding the Techs accountable for doing their job as expected
Holding the Team accountable to meet profitability expectations
Resource Utilization above 80%
SLA Performance above
Triage – 97%
Tech Engagement – 95%
Completion – 90%
Reactive Hours per Endpoint per Month to less than 1 hour of work for every 4 Endpoints
“WOW,” I imagine you are saying, “That’s a tall order.”
Yes, it is. But – if a Service Manager did step up and take responsibility for these three things, my goodness, the Service Delivery would:
Meet expectations
Maximize profitability
Provide a Zen work-environment
EXACTLY our point!
So, just how do we help our Service Managers be successful?
I’m glad you asked – we suggest:
Advanced Autotask Live Reports:
We recommend leveraging 5 Advanced Autotask Live Reports to track and monitor the Service Coordinator’s effectiveness and use them as a tool for coaching/mentoring conversations.
The list of Advanced Autotask Live Reports includes the following:
Scheduled Tickets with no Future Service Calls
The Backlog List of Tickets
Workflow Distribution Report
Service Delivery Forecast Report
SLA Performance Report
Note: What if you do not have these reports? Simple, it means there is more of the Autotask software you could be using to your advantage.
STOP right now and go no further until you send an email to Info@AGMSPCoaching.com asking about the Service Delivery Foundational Improvement program.
If you don’t, and you just continue reading, you’re only going to frustrate yourself. And I promised no confusion, remember?
Ok, moving on…
Scheduled Tickets with no Future Service Calls
Many Techs (not yours, of course) have been known to complete a scheduled engagement to a client’s satisfaction, only to not finalize the effort by marking the ticket Complete.
Their heart is in the right place – “I will stick the ticket in my back pocket and get to it ASAP.” The problem is getting back to it never happens. A year later, Carol comes along asking, “Why is this ticket still open??” and you’re having a birthday party (true story).
The reason tickets drift back to their 1st birthday is because once the ticket is scheduled, the only place to see tickets is in the Scheduled Service Calls widget. This widget is designed to only show Service Calls in the future and only for the next 30 days. This is the scheduling the Tech needs to be aware of – the rest is not important today.
It is the Service Coordinator’s responsibility to pick up this report each Thursday morning (it is scheduled to run automatically) and make sure there is either future scheduling or the Tech has put in their documentation and time and closes the ticket.
Having a lengthy list indicates the Service Coordinator is ignoring this aspect of their responsibilities, and it’s time to have a conversation with them. This is not a heavy task, it’s just one that needs to be done every week. If it is not done, there are huge ramifications when the Client calls asking for an update.
FYI: If the Service Coordinator asks what is expected of them, send them to this article on Dashboards: https://www.agmspcoaching.com/blog/dashboards-as-a-kpi-the-final-lap
The Backlog List of Tickets
The backlog list of tickets is different than the number of Overdue Tickets. According to TruMethods, ticket backlog is the number of open tickets at a given point in time; it tells you a lot about how effectively each level of support manages their ticket workload.
On the other hand, Overdue Ticket lists are based on the due date in the ticket, which can be changed to artificially show that you have no more overdue tickets.) While looking at a standard report of Overdue Tickets is fairly quick and easy, the risk in approach is having a disappointed Client waiting for resolution because you're not fulfilling your mission of providing Superior Service to the Client.
A backlog list is a leading indicator of potential problems, while an Overdue Ticket list shows you that you have a problem. Both are useful, but many MSP owners and managers like to get in front of problems before they happen.
It always helps to understand Client expectations. According to Gary Pica - and we agree - from the client's perspective:
If the request is Break/Fix, they expect it fixed within a week (often sooner)
If the request is for an Installation or Move/Add/Change, they tend to be a little more relaxed and can expect it to be completed within a month
Setting up a Backlog List of Tickets with widgets is now possible, but it takes two widgets. In this case, widgets are not as useful as a Live Report, which allows you to schedule a report to come out on a Wednesday morning and to schedule time on the following Thursday afternoon for the Techs to work the list.
The report goes to everyone on the Team Wednesday Morning. The Service Coordinator’s responsibility is twofold, depending on the # of Tickets in the report:
Less than 5 tickets per Tech, the Service Coordinator needs to work with them individually and ensure they are focused on these - either working on them today or blocking out time on their schedule to work on these soon
More than 5 tickets per Tech, the Service Coordinator needs to alert the Service Manager that the list is long and intervention is needed. They should then proceed to block out Thursday afternoon on everyone’s schedule (except the Tech scheduled for Critical Response engagement(s)) and let everyone know there is an “All Hands-On Deck” BLT killing party scheduled for Thursday afternoon. Then it is the Service Manager’s responsibility to hold the Techs accountable to:
Show Up
Be prepared
Focus on the task at hand
What happens between Wednesday morning and Thursday afternoon is magic: The first thing a tech will do is look at the list of tickets in their name. They’ll often just add documentation, time entries, and close the ticket before anyone else notices.
If they need help either from a mentor, higher-skilled Tech, or Google, they’ll usually find time to do the research before Thursday afternoon. Then when Thursday afternoon rolls around, more tickets are completed per hour than any other day or time of the week.
This can be guaranteed by calling for a digital blackout to remove external distractions, except the one tech assigned to critical responses for that day.
If the Service Coordinator is not driving the BLT down, then they are not doing their job, and they need coaching/mentoring and to be held accountable.
If the Service Manager or Service Coordinator is looking for more information on what to do, here is an article on Backlog Tickets: https://www.agmspcoaching.com/blog/backlog-tickets-the-nemesis-of-an-msp
Workflow Distribution Report
The Workflow Distribution Report informs the Service Manager if the Service Coordinator understands and is using all the workflows available in Autotask. It is important for both the Techs and Autotask PSAutomation software to know what workflow a ticket has been triaged into. Therefore, it is critically important for all Client Requests (Tickets) to be properly Triaged and the correct Workflow identified and called out.
A typical Workflow Distribution is a double humped bell curve with:
Medium being the highest peak, with about 35% of the tickets
Quick Hits the second hump, with about 20% of the Tickets
Both Critical and Projects should be less than 10% of the tickets. If the curve a Service Manager is looking at in the Workflow Distribution Report does not reasonably match this curve, then either the MSP is not typical, or the Service Coordinator is not doing their job.
Here is a link to a video on how to analyze the Workflow Distribution Report: Workflow_Distribution_Report_Analysis.mp4
Service Delivery Forecast Report
This is absolutely a WOW report because it provides a wealth of staffing information. But the part that helps a Service Manager hold a Service Coordinator accountable is the Average Technician Effort per Workflow.
If the M/A/C greater than 4 hours is significantly less than 4 hours, then the Client Requests are not being triaged into the proper workflow. I have seen this once or twice, and both times, the Service Coordinator was putting the tickets in M/A/C > 4 hours to avoid missing SLAs. This is not an excuse and is something the Service Manager needs to address with the Team.
The Workflow Distribution report informs a Service Manager if the Service Coordinator is using all the workflows. The Service Delivery Forecast report tells the Service Manager if the Service Coordinator is using the workflows correctly.
It also gives the Service Manager talking points when coaching/mentoring a Service Coordinator. For example:
How much project disruptions to expect?
Are the Workflows being used correctly?
How many hours per day and per week are needed for Remote Support?
SLA Performance Report
The SLA Performance Report is the #1 Service Coordinator performance KPI. When we started delivering the Service Delivery Foundational Improvement program back in the fall of 2019, we found (much to our surprise) that if you fix the Intake Process (Triage SLA) then most of the other Service Delivery performance issues go away naturally – without management intervention.
However, in the case of the SLA Performance, the Service Coordinators responsibility and performance go way beyond Triage. They are also responsible for driving all Client Requests from “New” to “Complete.”
How well they are doing shows up in the SLA Performance report. Triage is 100% on them.
But they have the Service Coordinator #2 dashboard to balance the workload across all Techs (or should have – if you do not have this dashboard, email us at Info@AGMSPCoaching.com immediately).
And they should be using this dashboard to do everything possible not to miss an SLA, or at the very least call (yes, pick up the phone and call) the Client, informing them that things are busy, but they have not been forgotten.
If I were in your shoes, I would meet with the Service Coordinator every Thursday to go over the report and discuss what can be done to improve the SLA performance. This collaboration time will open up a wealth of conversations across all the KPIs the Service Coordinator is responsible for and provide a wealth of coaching moments so as to avoid holding them accountable.
By utilizing these Advanced Live Reports, the Service Manager can do a great job with their #2 responsibility of managing Service Coordinators.
Without them, you are just the lead role in a comedy film, firing chickens instead of arrows. With them, you have more time to really enjoy a good movie. Which scenario would you prefer?
We start our engagements by offering a FREE No-Obligation PSA Configuration Evaluation. Get started today.
Steve & Co
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 our engagements by offering a FREE No-Obligation PSA Configuration Evaluation