Advanced Global Declares WAR on Underperforming KPIs
Enough is enough.
We are FED UP!
Fed up of standing by, watching MSPs struggle to learn how to use the Autotask software to find, benchmark, and track the KPIs most useful in Improving the Service Delivery Operation.
And it is high time Advanced Global did something about it.
Hold up: If you are frustrated because a KPI you need to track is not available, believable, or not automated, don’t stay stuck any longer:
>>> Schedule a Call with Advanced Global’s MSP KPI Team right NOW
4 Reasons Why MSPs Struggle to Meet KPIs
Why are so many MSPs struggling to meet the Key Performance Indicators? These four reasons are often the culprit:
1) The Foundation (PSA Software) is not fully utilized
2) Accountability is lacking
3) Not knowing which KPIs are important
4) Why
Fully Leveraging Autotask:
There are two major areas where not fully leveraging Autotask holds the MSP back from obtaining the “Best in Class” KPI performance:
First: Without fully leveraged PSA software, the data needed to drive the KPI performance reporting does not exist. For example, if you want to know if the Service Delivery Team meets Customer Expectations when it comes to Moves/Adds/Changes, you’ll need a way to separate them from Quick Hit Service Requests, Install, and Projects. Once segmented, you’ll need the SLA Automation set up properly to track performance.
But that is not the biggest problem. The chief issue is that the Service Delivery Team is not equipped to meet KPI performance expectations. For example, Autotask provides great “Nice to Know” informational dashboards, which are way better than just a list of tickets in a queue, “My Task and Tickets,” or some board of cards that can be moved around without any real productivity.
Dashboards allow up to 12 lists in a single view, ordered in 12 different ways.
· Want to know what to work on next? There is a widget for that.
· Want to know where your next scheduled engagement with the Customers is? There is a widget for that, too.
· Need to move the Waiting… Tickets out of your way, but not out of your view? You guessed it, there is a widget for that.
Now a Tech is in a position to meet KPI performance expectations. But wait, the PSA software is not configured to order the tickets by the Next SLA Event Due Date. So not only do the Techs not know what to work on next, the Service Coordinator has no idea which ones need intervention to meet Customers’ expectations.
Know this: Not meeting Customers’ expectations is the #1 reason Customers leave an MSP. Of course, I know you do not have that problem. It’s because the Owner spends an inordinate amount of time doing damage control, hand-holding, and back peddling, and that is how Service Delivery Issues are a barrier to growth (along with scalability).
This is only the tip of the iceberg. It actually merits an article or a year-long series of articles on this subject alone. See all the blog articles between Sept 6th, 2019, thru Aug 28th, 2020 or download the Unshackled eBook.
Second: Now that the PSA is set up properly, the Techs and Service Coordinators need to build the habits of using them. You would think telling them once would make sense, and from there, life would be good. But truth be told, it takes reps to change habits.
Jack Welch said he needed to raise the Six Sigma up the flagpole for 3 years before the Executive Team got it. I’m not sure how long it took the rest of GE to get it. From our experience, after the PSA is properly set up (which takes about 4 months), it is another 3-6 months working with the Team to optimize their performance.
Accountability:
Careful, this is my latest tirade and the area where I seem to be very short-tempered these days. I realized I have failed to explain why holding the Techs accountable for Real-Time Time Entry impacts the Customer Experience. Yes, we are aware that R-TTE provides better time tracking and is therefore fairer to both the Customer and MSP.
In addition, most MSPs realize that with R-TTE, documentation is much improved, which drives operational efficiencies for the next Tech who must engage to fix whatever the first Tech broke. (Oh, sorry, I know that never happens to you, just to me).
Most Techs do not realize that R-TTE and Documentation are part of the engagement, and the Customer expects this work to be done before the engagement is declared completed and the Tech disengages.
Trust me, a Customer would love to pay, or expects Real-Time Updates to be part of what they are already paying for under the Managed Service Agreement.
They’d love to have timely updates that inform them of what was accomplished, next steps, when they will hear from someone, and so on.
Is that asking too much? APPARENTLY, it is. (I warned you this is a tirade). The bottom line is, the Techs are being paid to do this PROFESSIONAL work, and not holding them accountable is a SIN. There, I said it.
But that is not the biggest problem with not holding a Tech accountable for R-TTE. It is the Customer experience and disservice to the Customer that suffers the biggest impact.
Now, I know that you do not have that problem…or do you? If you took your car to the shop and got a call on Sunday night, telling you that your car was finished last Tuesday and you could pick it up any time after last Tuesday, you would be pissed off – am I right?
I know I would be. Not as PO’d as I am that MSPs do not hold Techs accountable for R-TTE, but pretty d___ close.
I don’t know about you, but that would be the last time I took my car to that shop. See, that is the biggest problem with not holding the Techs accountable for R-TTE. Without R-TTE and fully leveraged Autotask PSA Software, the Customer is not kept in the loop of where their request is at and what Services you are not delivering.
One last note: We have a Real-Time Time Entry report available that shows:
1) The delta between when the Tech disengaged and when they put in the time entry (the goal is -.02 hours or minus 1.2 minutes – we know from running the R-TTE report regularly across many MSPs).
2) The Gap between Time Entries (0 is the goal, but in reality, with lunch it probably is around 11 minutes).
3) The average duration of each engagement** (0.8 to 1.5 depending on the ratio of Remote to Onsite work they are doing.
** We know a Tech that moved on to other opportunities because his average duration was 6 minutes. So yes, he turned in 98 Time Entries in a week, but come on, how much work are you really doing with an average engagement duration of 6 minutes? By the way, the same Tech escalated 54% of the tickets assigned to him).
If this level of reporting is what you are looking for, Schedule a Call.
And this is just the tip of the Iceberg – see the accountability article in the Service Delivery Gladiators Community…
Knowing Which KPIs are Important:
It’s challenging to know which of the hundreds, maybe thousands, of KPIs bantered back and forth in blog articles like this one are essential. The biggest problem here is the people telling us what to do are from outside of our Industry.
I am the first to tell you that we monitor the Enterprise IT industry and what they are doing, especially in the areas of SOPs and KPIs.
We also monitor the Manufacturing Industry. Most of what makes us different is the ability to take Deming, LEAN, Six Sigma philosophies and not only apply them to a Service Industry as in my past experience, but also to adapt them to the MSP space. From our experience, and yes, we are significantly biased, unless you lived in the Service Delivery trenches, you do not fully understand the Service Delivery Issues or KPIs.
One other aspect that makes us different is that we are working with MSPs from around the world on a continual basis. While most of our conversations revolve around improving Service Delivery Operations, driving the results takes finding, benchmarking, and tracking KPIs.
Which KPIs do we recommend? The ones that we have been asked to Find, Benchmark, and Track, which has provided real results. We have over 29+ years of Service Delivery experience using the Autotask software and are some of the best Autotask Live Report writers on the planet. In other words, we have been working directly with MSPs around the world for the last 5 years – that is why we know what we know.
Even with that strong pedigree, we listen, and are regularly asked to write Live Reports so some MSP somewhere in the world can track a new KPI. For example, recently, we was asked to write a live report for the Effective Labor Rate. First, we wrote the report and informed the very good MSP why the metric does not apply to an MSP operation, then we took the same report and offered it to an MSP with a T&M billing model where it made sense – time will tell if the report was effective for either MSP.
With that said, what do we recommend? We focus on three areas when guiding Customers on how to leverage Autotask to Improve the Service Delivery Operation because every MSP has a right to be successful.
The three areas are:
1) Intake and Open Ticket Management, with 15 data points
2) Labor Profitability (LEAN model) with 4 data points
3) Tech Performance with 5 data points
Why:
Is any one KPI Important? While we hear much chatter about which KPIs MSPs should be benchmarking, tracking, and improving upon, the chatter’s WHY is very shallow. When it comes to KPIs, we focus on 10 dashboard widgets, 14 Live Reports, plus one more recently discovered secret weapon in the WAR on underperforming KPIs.
Yet, as I write this article, we are at 1940 words – and I could keep going on…and on…and on.
That’s why, over the next few weeks (25 if it takes that long), we will be writing on what we are hearing from the Community on each of the 16 KPIs to track.
So, what to do about these KPIs? For one thing, schedule a call. We are happy to tell you what we know and think. And if you need help benchmarking, tracking, and analyzing, we are here for you.
