What Does a Service Coordinator Really Do?

“A Service Coordinator is worth their weight in gold.”That simple statement caused riots in the weekly Autotask/Datto RMM Ask the Expert Zoom conference calls. Whew, it was intense. [su_note note_color="#f4f718" text_color="#000000"]Our Zoom meetings are always open to any I.T. Managed Service Provider, and our specialty is helping with the Autotask software & Service Delivery operational challenges. Click here to get the meeting info.[/su_note]We’ve said it many times, and we’re sticking to it – Service Coordinators are invaluable to any MSP worth their salt. But at the end of the day, you just want to know exactly whattheir specific duties are, right? Let’s jump right into a day in the life of a Service Coordinator…

Service Coordinator Daily Duties

The expectation of the Service Coordinator is that they are managing all open tickets. That is a tall order, and if we do not equip the Service Coordinator with the right tools, it is an unreasonable expectation. By right tools, we are talking about dashboards. The 3 dashboards are:

1. First, a dashboard to help them manage their day effectively.

2. Next, clarity on each Tech and what they are working on in a given day.

3. Lastly, a view showing what the Techs see in their Ready to Engage widget.

Here is how to use the dashboards as they go through their Daily Duties:

Dashboard 1

1. Triage Widget: Triage all Tickets in the Widget.

2. All Service Calls Scheduled Widget: Review Today’s Schedule on all Techs &know where they are going and when.

3. Did any Tech call in? If so,their day will need to be cleared for them and re-route work, if necessary.

4. Customer Responded to Sub-Widget: Check to see that the tickets which clients have responded to are being taken care of and that the client has been updated.Also, be sureAll Critical tickets are being worked or have moved from Critical to high/medium.

5. SLA Summary widget: Look at tickets coming up on the Tech Engagement Due, Tech Engagement Overdue, and Completion due. Find out what can be done to avoid missing an SLA. If nothing can be done, update the Customer with: “We are not responding as quickly as we would like right now. We do have your request and will be engaging asap.”

6. All Waiting Status widget – no ticket should be in there with a last activity date of more than 2 days.

7. On Hold Tickets Widget: Make sure all due dates are in the future.

8. Scheduled Tickets without a Service Call: Grab the ticket and schedule it – no ifs, ands, or butts about it.

9. Tickets ready for Billing Review: Check to make sure all Time Entries are accounted for, and that the Work Type is correct on each one.

Dashboard 2

1. Tickets are spread out between all the techs.

2. How many tickets does each tech have that they can work on? This tells you who can take a critical ticket and who needs more work.

3. Overdue widget lets you know who is falling behind. Do they need these tickets scheduled? What is the roadblock keeping them from completing this ticket?

4. Estimated Hours– helps alert you when a tech has more work than they can get done by the end of the day. When it is over 10 hrs, you will need to reassign tickets to another who does not have as many hours.

Dashboard 3

1. All widgets should have the next SLA Event for the future. If one is not in the future, ask the tech how much time they need and schedule it for them.

Keep an eye on time– you should not go without looking at the triage queue every 15 minutes. The triage widget is the most important thing and should be continuously watched.Notice, at no time did we say pay attention to the “All Open Tickets” number or the number of tickets overdue. These are nice to know numbers, but they are not crucial to helping the Service Coordinator get through the day or perform their duties. 

A Must-Know About Open & Overdue Tickets

service delivery

How many open tickets should an MSP expect?Between 15 & 20 per Tech!How many overdue?ZERO. If the number of overdue tickets is not declining, or they are not declining at a rate satisfactory to the Service Manager or Owner, then it is an all-hands-on-deck approach and there is not much a single Service Coordinator can do about it. Harping on the Techs, while oftenused, is not the best approach.If it becomes too heavy-handed,this tactic can erode the respect and appreciation for the position – or just plain be ignored, which is obviously not good for the company and should never happen.

How to Manage Overdue Tickets Like A Pro

So, what to do about overdue tickets? Typically, a ticket killing party. If the party is Friday afternoon, bring on the Pizza and Beer. If scheduled for every Wednesday afternoon (which we strongly recommend), send out an open ticket report of every non-project ticket over 7 days old on Tuesday morning. One MSP does it this way and never has a non-project ticket more than 14 days old – now is that a lofty goal or what?!By the time Wednesday afternoon rolls around,a significant number of the tickets will have the Time and Documentation added and be closed.Others will be closed promptly after 1, because the Techs will have either developed a resolution plan or provided a “Heads Up” collaboration is needed.    How do we know these things? Because we only do one thing, and we do it very well: We guide MSPs, using the Autotask software, on how to resolve Service Delivery issues.