10% Profit Increase in 17 Weeks or Less Part 2: The Wrath of Chaos
Welcome back, Autotask Explorers. Once again, we leave our safe and boring Vaults to explore the unknown concepts (for many MSPs) of a healthy, profitable, business that is a great place to work…
In this article, we’re covering:
(Intro) Slay the chaos to get real RESULTS
5 steps to achieving your biggest goals
Techs knowing what to work on next
Dashboards that give Service Coordinators “Single Pane of Glass” looks into Ticket Management
Affirming that billable hours are all captured
Ensuring Clients are kept in the loop
Creating more time for Sales to actually sell stuff
Next steps to success…
This is Week 2 of a series for those of you who want to build your business, are tired of carrying a laptop to the grocery store, and would like to go on a date night without taking a Client call during dessert. We’re going to bring you the truth – no matter how bad it hurts.
We are going to slay Chaos to grow raving fan Clients, have happy Techs who enjoy working for you, and increase profits. And it won’t feel like you are crossing a wasteland full of ghouls, we promise.
Are these familiar statements at your MSP?
We hear it all the time:
Techs are productive less than 50% of the time – they don’t know what to work on and burn time figuring it out.
We believe we are writing off a significant number of Billable Hours as Managed Service Support.
Steve, we do not have time to meet with you. We don’t even have enough time for Sales or to focus on growing the company.
Now, we can’t care more about your business than you, so we can’t do it all for you. But if you’ll work with us and put in some time and work now, you’ll get it back and more when we’re done.
Yes, once we show your Team how to Categorize, Prioritize and get some Mindset Changes in place, you’ll have the following:
A Zen Work Environment
Raving Fans
Freedom from Service Delivery Issues to Grow the Business
Ready? Let us connect the dots…
TLDR: Here is how we get these results:
A system that allows Techs to know what to work on next without micro-managing.
Building dashboards that give Service Coordinators “Single Pane of Glass” looks into Ticket Management.
Ensuring billable hours are all captured.
Ensuring Clients are kept in the loop.
Creating more time for Sales to actually sell stuff.
Techs Knowing What to Work on Next
This is accomplished by meeting their need to have a worklist that they trust.
One that automatically sorts the list to comply with Managed Services Agreements and Client expectations.
And one that exonerates them from being questioned as to “why are you working on that request?”
The way this works in an Advanced Global world, is that they have one widget “Ready to Engage” that is sorted by the Next SLA Event Due Date. By sorting the list by Next SLA Event Due Date, the list is prioritized based on the SLA Automation, which in turn is configured according to the MSA and reasonable Client expectations.
The way the SLA Automation knows the difference between one Client Request and another is by the segmenting of different types of Client Request into different Workflows (not to be confused with rules), and an SOP developed for each workflow.
Service Coordinators know which Client requests need intervention before the Owner does:
This is accomplished by giving them an Open Ticket Management “Service Coordinator #1” (SC#1) dashboard.
With the SC#1 dashboard, in a single glance they can see new Tickets, Tickets needing to be scheduled, Tickets coming up on SLA, who is out of office, Waiting and On-Hold tickets, as well as a whole host of information they may been from time to time – Team Hours Worked this Week, Contracts up for Renewal, Today’s Time Entries.
There is even one widget the shows All Open Tickets, Critical Tickets, Client Responded, and Service Coordinator Help Needed. IN A SINGLE GLANCE.
At first, this is a lot to take in, but for the hub of the Company it is the minimal information needed for them to do their job, stay on top of their responsibilities, and see the problems before the Owner hears about them from the Clients.
The way this works in an Advanced Global world is that we coach the Service Coordinator which widgets need to be monitored continuously (Triage), which ones to work on as time permits (Scheduling, SLA, and Client Responded), which ones to check once or twice per day (Waiting, SC Help Needed, Today’s Time Entries) and the ones once per week (Contracts Expiring, On-Hold, and PTO this week). And when to alert the Service Manager of issues that are above their pay-grade (All Open Tickets, Team Hours Worked this Week, Backlog List of Tickets).
Yes, it is overwhelming at first, we hear you. But in just a few weeks, a Service Coordinator with the right attitude (yes, there is an evaluation for that) will be taking control of the chaos and wrestling it to the ground until a Zen work environment emerges – and it will.
100% of the billable hours (not to be confused with covered hours vs non-covered hours) are captured as T&M billing
This is accomplished by bridging the great divide between what the Tech’s know and what the Accounting Folks know.
Both in the Autotask software as well as our Culture, there is a significant gap. A gap that is causing up to 15% of the hours that an MSP is entailed to, to be written off as Managed Service Support – think Project or afterhours work, or work that is limited such as On-Site or M/A/Cs.
The way this works in an Advanced Global world that the Techs just tell us “What Type of Work did you Do,” from there we configure the contract module via Cascading Contract Automation, to transcode Techeese (What Type of Work) to align with the SOWs on a Client-by-Client basis.
This way, Work Included in the MSA is Covered by the Recurring Service Contract, and all other Work is presented to A&P as non-Covered billable hours. What rate is the non-Covered Billable hours presented to A&P? Well, that depends on who the Client is and what Type of Work was done.
Clients are updated and kept in the engagement process loop
This is accomplished by adapting the best-in-class Client-Facing Communications Protocol developed by HDI and adapted to the MSP space.
Automate the process by leveraging Time Entry summary notes to communicate to the Clients:
What work was accomplished
What are the next steps
When will the next steps be engaged on
Who will be doing the engagement
The way this works in an Advanced Global world is that we coach the Techs to use Form Templates to communicate that the right Type of Work was done, as well as the four bullet point updates the Clients need, expect, and are paying for.
We then build out Workflow Rules (Note: here we are talking about WFRs as opposed to Workflow SOPs) to automate the Client-Facing communication without disrupting anyone in-house with noise (emails that no one pays attention to). At the same time, we introduce and coach the full Team on the best-in-class Client-Facing Communications Protocol.
Owners, Hunters and Farmers have the freedom to grow the business
This is accomplished by resolving several pain points:
Micro-Managing Client Requests because they do not trust the Service Delivery Team to manage the expectations or promises
Empowering the Service Delivery Team to be Self-Managed
Responding to Client complaints and the time it takes to track down the information needed to form a response, rather than having a SC on top of things and one who can respond on behalf of the Company (and in time becomes an advocate and go-to person for the Client)
Saving up to 12% of their Sales Time by marking up and editing invoices less, because they are coming out of A&P more accurately
The way this works in an Advanced Global world is that we give the Service Delivery Team dashboards that inform them of What to Work on Next and a greater awareness of everything they are Responsible for.
We guide them on how to use speed codes, not only to be more efficient, but to also improve their accuracy and ability to communicate what needs to be communicated in a concise manner. Then we recommend six levels of Automation (there is way more to PSAutomation than WFRs; we are talking about Rules again, not SOPs) and many automated and semi-automated mechanisms.
I know that’s a lot. And it sounds like a lot of work to do it yourself or a lot of money to get the best Coaches to help you. You’d be right to an extent. You can take years and do it yourself, deal with the Fallout, and be out that time you spent and money you could have made. Or, you can pay to engage our team and grow your revenue now with a great ROI. Your choice.
(Before I spend my money, tell me…) Who is Advanced Global and How do they Know what they Know:
A team of Autotask/Datto/Kaseya Certified PSA/RMM experts with 68 years of experience
MSP Veterans who have lived the same life as you (including Owners)
A team that has worked with 219 and counting MSPs from around the world, capturing the best ideas and rolling them into a “Best-in-Class” Standard Build
Available as a Guide on the Side for 1/10 of the cost of going it alone, with a proven Operational Improvement Programs, and Money-Back guarantee results
Advanced Global is here to help with these FREE offerings:
Subscribe and Download: Unshackled: Finding the Freedom from Service Delivery Issues
Request a FREE No-Obligation Evaluation by emailing info@AGMSPCoaching.com
Autotask PSA Configuration Evaluation
Operational Efficiency Evaluation
Short Staffing Evaluation
Schedule a Free Strategy Conversation with Steve/Chris – Note: this is not a sales call, we promise
Steve & Co