NOC, NOC. Who’s There?
NOC, NOC. Who’s There? Outsourced NOCs.
And they are here to help your MSP.
Yes indeed, a NOC relationship is your solution to:
Afterhours Support
Managing Monitoring Alerts
As needed (think 4th Qtr) Staff Augmentation
Critical Request Response
Professional Services / Project Work
Afterhours Support:
Not sure you have noticed it, but the #1 reason a Tech leaves MSP employment is because of that D… Pager!
So, what is the solution?
Pay BIG BUCKS?
“Survey Says…” not really.
That just sends a message that the Techs are right, carrying the pager is a B…., and to be happy, they should just move on to Internal IT Opportunities.
Tell the Customers not to call? Yeah right – try to keep the lights on with that one.
Partner with MSPs around the world and follow the sun – seems like a good idea, but only one or two MSPs that we are aware of actually do this.
Even worse, to do it right, you need to have Sr. Engineers on call. You know, the ones that work on projects all day, as most Critical Requests that merit afterhours engagements are Network issues, and you need the best of the best to engage so as not to mess up the Network. We are aware of some Sr. Engineers who are tired of the daily grind and actually prefer working overnight and engaging on red lights when they pop up.
The best solution? In my opinion, you need to partner with an outsourced NOC for afterhours Critical Request support. I say this because:
They are staffed with Sr. Engineers.
They have the bandwidth to take on the work.
Their regular hours are your Afterhours.
Yes, I am fully aware that some of the requests will need to be onsite. But check your data – it is less than 10% of the time. How do we know this? Because we checked the data.
How to Effectively Manage Monitoring Alerts:
Almost every MSP that partners with us to guide them on how to Leverage Autotask to Resolve their Service Delivery Issues is struggling to manage the monitoring alerts.
Or, truth be told, not struggling at all – just ignoring them. This is dangerous because there may be a Critical Request lurking in the noise. But at 10-15 minutes per day per Customer going thru the thousands of monitoring alerts (95% of which are noise) means that the average Tech can only support 25 – 38 Customers.
So, let me ask you:
How many Customers do you have?
How many Techs?
How many Techs are you willing to dedicate to pre-triaging Monitoring Alerts – Zero?
When we work with Customers who use the Datto RMM, the first thing we do is get on top of the RMM scripting and knock the noise down. Not sure if you are aware of this, but by using scripting to automatically have the RMM resolve the situation, you can cut the noise down by 80%. In other words, 1000 alerts translate to only 200 tickets – still a lot, but at least not drowning.
Best practice is to leave these tickets in the Monitoring Alert queue (yes, we really mean a queue – not a widget), have a Tech pre-triage them, and if engagement is needed, transfer them to the Triage Queue for review and assignment (along with notification to the Customer – you know the one that helps keep the lights on).
Now if your head is still spinning, and you feel your MSP is in a dire situation, why not consider outsourcing to a NOC? After all, they have the talent standing by. They work early morning hours, so the 200 tickets (yes, still work on the scripting, to reduce the cost of an outsourced NOC) are pre-triaged before your Techs show up at 6 am. Your Techs do start before your Customers start don’t, they?
As Needed Staff Augmentation:
We know of several MSPs that use an outsourced NOC whenever they get run over by tickets (OK, they are always using a NOC, but the Staff Augmentation goes up and down with the seasons – and I am sure you know when the ticket monsoon seasons are).
At least one MSP has no Techs at all. They use an outsourced NOC, and partner with the Customers to have a free pair of hands available, or the Owner goes onsite when needed. The relationship works well, just not sure how scalable it is.
The bottom-line is: Outsourced NOCs are standing by to help.
What to do with Critical Request Responses:
As you know, Advanced Global’s claim to fame & competitive advantage is that we have been there and done that. What you may not know is that it all started with what to do with Critical Request Responses.
You see, at the MSP I was working for way back when – the one that hired me to take them from being a reactive Break/Fix Managed Service Support house to a Proactive Managed Service Support / Professional Services house – had a major, significant, stupendous, devastating, over-the-top (take that Grammarly) problem with Critical Request Responses. Not that the SLA performance was bad, just the train wreck the all-hands-on-deck approach was causing.
To get a handle on it, the first thing I needed to know was how many hours per day, per week we were talking about. It took me six months to figure it out. Not six months to figure out where the data was and what formula to use – it was six months to learn live reports - Can you relate?
With the number in hand, I proceeded to get fired (almost). I asked if I could pre-position Sr. Project Engineers for Critical Request Response. I was told H… NO!! You cannot take highly billable Project Engineers and have them standing around in case something happens.
On the way back to my cube, it dawned on me that my Team of Customer Service Representatives, owned and controlled all billable resources calendars, and I did not need Executive permission to put the pre-positioning scheduling in place, so we did. A month later the Executive Team realized what we were doing, and I was called to the principal’s office. However, on the way, my supervisor paused to check the utilization numbers.
What he saw shocked him. It was the highest utilization numbers in the 25-year history of the Company. I never made it to the principal’s office on that day (oh yes, there were many other days – I am a rebel – read The Leadership Gap by Lolly Daskal) and going forward the Executive Team were raving fans of my off beat (their words) logical (my words) way of doing things.
As a side note, every disruption costs an MSP 24 minutes per tech. So, do a ticket search for all Critical Tickets created last year. Multiply this number times the # of Techs, times .4 (24/60 minutes to convert 24 minutes to .4 hours), times your standard role rate, and that is how much the all-hands-on-deck SOP is costing you. Oh, please subtract the 1 Tech who was Volun-told to take the request.
Now with this number in hand, you have three choices:
Partner with Advanced Global to guide you on how to Leverage Autotask to Resolve all your Service Delivery Issues.
Partner with an Outsourced NOC to take those Critical Requests off your hands.
Both, as the number you save on getting rid of the All-Hands-On-Deck SOP will more than cover the cost. Try it, you might like the results…
Professional Services / Project Work:
The #1 reason a Tech leaves an MSP is Afterhours work.
The #2 reason is Projects.
While Projects get all the glory, it is the contractual obligations of Managed Service support that keeps them from being fun and done On-Time and On-Budget.
The disruptions to projects from support escalations (Critical Requests, again) is the problem. We have one Customer with 3 dedicated Project Engineers (also something we are dead set against) & had 72 hours of escalation work per week. What is yours? Check your data!
If you are not ready to manage projects, or if you do not have any true Project Engineers on staff, the best thing to do is consider partnering with an Outsourced NOC.
The 2nd best option is to wait until after March 31st - and then surf the Unemployed Professionals channel in the new Service Delivery Gladiators Community brought to you by Advanced Global MSP Coaching. ;-)
HUGE NOTE:
Outsourced Help Desk is coming back into vogue (the overseas Techs speak American style English & know what they are doing – not just reading scripts).
But we do not recommend outsourcing Customer-Facing work. Knowing who the Customer is and what business they are in is critical to a successful relationship. Having a Customer trust you, partner with you, and become raving fans of you, is so valuable, we would never trust it to anyone else.
The key takeaway: outsource as much remote, behind-the-scenes work as you need to and be smart about it.
But never trust your valued Customer to the NOC.
How do we know how? Because we have 22+ years of MSP Service Delivery Coordinator/Manager experience on staff, and 17+ years Autotask System Administration experience. Which is another way of saying we have been there and done that, and we know how to leverage the Autotask software to Resolve Service Delivery Issues.
Click here to sign up for Ask the Expert reminders and join us March 25th or 26th to hear Jason Cohen from Mission Control opinions on outsourcing to a NOC