Would someone please tell me where this Most Important Customer's ticket is at?!
When was the last time a client called, frustrated with an unresolved request, only to find out no one could provide the status?
Yes, we have dashboards tracking tickets, but when you look at the list of 100 open tickets or more, it’s still hard to find the one in question.
And 9 times out of 10, when you do find the right ticket, there’s no information in it anyway. Locating the tech responsible, if one even exists, takes even more time.
Meanwhile, frustrations are mounting at the MSP…
The client is frustrated because it’s taking too much time to answer the question – which to them, means no one knows.
The tech is frustrated because they’re constantly being disrupted asking about tickets they vaguely remember, loading them up with guilt, which in-turn causes back-peddling, justifying their lack of knowledge.
All of this yields a frustrated owner, caught in the middle - leading to an MSP looking for Service Delivery Improvement help.
Service Delivery Improvements demand 3 mindset shifts
The hardest part about bringing Service Delivery Improvements or change in general is not the Autotask dashboards or configurations – those take only a few hours. What’s needed are three mindset changes to be embraced, internalized, and made part of everyday life to achieve change. And it’s easier said than done.
Techs are great at fixing things, but not so great at taking responsibility for all open tickets…or even the ones assigned to them.
It’s cost-effective to have one person designated as responsible for all open tickets, including the responsibility to drive them from New-to-Complete.
Figuring out how to configure Autotask, implement Service Delivery SOPs, and train that one person takes years (7-10), if you go it alone.
Meanwhile, clients are frustrated and at-risk of leaving the MSP due to poor service and not the more-often-suspected lack of technical expertise.
FYI:
The industry average is 4% for switching MPS; 8% for not renewing agreements.
It costs more to replace a client (80 hours of work – 40 technical hours, 40 relational hours and the acquisition costs related to marketing) than to just keep one.
By providing a great client experience, referrals will drive sales. We’re aware of some MSPs growing by 20% per year just with referrals and no sales team / marketing overhead.
Is Your MSP Wasting profits? Probably…
So, while the MSP team is thinking about these changes, profits are being wasted. Did you know the average tech does 28 hours per week of client-facing work, while the best MSP's techs are doing anywhere from 32 to 34 hours?
The difference between the two is worth an extra $31,200 - $62,400 in profit per tech per year. This is HUGE, and when you multiply it times the # of techs – say 6, for example, the number is $187,200 - $374,400 a year.
What does this mean? It means you could take on another ¼ MILLION in revenue without adding any Service Delivery expense. Put differently, if the Service Delivery team were operating at peak performance – it would be pure profit.
How do we know? Because like in those Farmers Insurance commercials “We know a thing or two, because we've seen a thing or two.” And in my personal experience, I’ve lived it.
A Real-Life MSP Success Story…
By responding to feedback from QBRs where our client experience needed to improve (leading to a Client-Facing Communications Protocol that produced raving fans), to figuring out ways to configure the Autotask software to stop us fighting ourselves… All that led to techs knowing what to work on next and service managers knowing which tickets merit their attention.
And, of course, years of collaborating with techs and service managers to develop Autotask dashboards to organize their day and provide total awareness of everything for which they were responsible.
We have many success stories to share, but one that comes to mind is of a client located in the southern United States. The MSP had a well-run 6-tech Service Delivery operation and a very talented service coordinator and a smart service manager.
The MSP owner was ex-military, and I was impressed with his satin steel approach: Soft on his people but set a high bar for performance, mandating adherence to the SOPs they’d developed together.
Even for this buttoned-up MSP service delivery operation, our FREE No-Obligation PSA Configuration pointed out several areas of improvement:
A path to configure the software to work with you better
A way for the software to manage all non-project, open tickets
A better customer-facing communications experience
Improved Autotask dashboards
Service Delivery Improvements guide
With this new-found knowledge in-hand, they embarked upon AGMSPC’s Service Delivery Foundational Improvement program (SDFI).
Towards the end of SDFI, the Owner validated that based on the improved profits he was seeing, the savings in wasted billable hours was projected to be $186,000 for that year alone.
It’s a real mystery to us that more MSPs don’t go through the FREE No-Obligation PSA Configuration Evaluation. My coach (and yes, I have a coach on how Advanced Global can provide a better transformational education experience!) wonders if an MSP is reluctant because they feel they have the most "messed up" Service Delivery operation (…which we heard an MSP owner say to us, just this week!).
Well, if that’s the case, I can assure you, even the most inexperienced MSPs are doing at least 4-5 things well, and we’re quick to point them out during our Findings & Suggestions.
Some may not trust that we really mean FREE and No-Obligation. Truth is, there is value in us doing these evaluations:
We get an opportunity to see how someone else is using Autotask, and from time-to-time, we come away with great ideas – ALL of our improvements over the last five years have come from working with MSPs from around the world.
If we provide more value than expected, then you’re HAPPY to tell others! Look - we don’t expect everyone to use our services, but we’re positive those who do take the leap will have great results. And if we can WOW you, you’ll tell others, which is extremely valuable to us. We’ve been able to help a lot of MSPs that were referrals from other MSPs that weren’t ready to fully engage in tackling improvements.
A “NO” will never hurt our feelings (“Thanks for that Autotask PSA Configuration Evaluation, but…”)
We’ve done a few Autotask PSA Config Evals where the owner or service manager said, “Thanks for the info, but we know more about running an MSP Service Delivery operation than Advanced Global does.” To which we said “Thank you for the conversation” - and let them move on. We have no need to butt heads with someone convinced that they know everything.
Actually, we’re a little bit jealous. We wished we knew everything, but the truth is, in working with MSPs from around the world, we know don’t know everything. It’s the collaboration with hundreds of MSPs that’s allowed us to collect the best MSP Service Delivery Autotask configurations and operational SOPs, not to mention being pushed to write the best Service Delivery performance reports on the planet (Heaven help us when NASA takes Autotask to the moon!).
Can we access your Autotask PSA software?
I’m sure there are other reasons why MSPs aren’t interested in our PSA Config Eval. Security, for example, is a huge concern. And we get that. We use a top-rated MSP password manager with strict access controls. We utilize MFA. We sign an NDA with our clients, and our team receives regular reminders of NDA terms as well as security awareness training. And there’s even more (did I mention we take security VERY seriously?) – which we’re happy to discuss with prospective clients before they engage.
Which is the reality for your MSP?
Back to “Would someone please tell me where this most important customer's ticket is at?!”
If the MSP is stuck in a reactive, Break/Fix mode:
No one really knows (or is tracking) all open tickets
If the MSP has achieved a proactive, data-driven mode:
Someone knows where every ticket is…
…and where they are on their journey from cradle-to-grave…
…and which ones need intervention to meet client expectations.
If you’re still running the MSP Service Delivery operation in a reactive mode and are ready to mature to a proactive, data-driven operation à
You could spend oh, say, 7-10 years figuring it out on your own…or you could press the EASY button & reach out to Advanced Global by Clicking Here for more information on the FREE No-Obligation PSA Configuration Evaluation.
This easy process will put you on the road to someone managing all open tickets and knowing which ones need intervention - AND which intervention SOP is the correct one for any given situation.
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 FREE No-Obligation PSA Configuration Evaluation