Finding Freedom: From All Those Tickets Part 7

Nov 22

Please Don’t Kill Your Service Coordinator

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Hello, Autotask Warriors. Welcome Back! It was awesome to see so many of you last week at the CMIT Conference. I love seeing you in person, catching up, and hearing about your successes and struggles using the Autotask software. (And thank you for all the orders that keep coming in – I think I’m going to be busy until St. Patrick’s Day at this rate!)

“Warriors?” you ask, still stuck on my opening words.

For those of you new to Mr. Buyze’s Neighborhood, YOU - Owners, Ops Managers, Service Managers, Service Coordinators, Techs, and even sales folks - are fighting the good fight and (hopefully) winning battles using the Autotask software. You are Warriors - Stand strong and proud! (Shameless plug: if you wanna take it to the next level and be a Gladiator, join the Service Delivery Gladiator’s Community.)

Speaking of battles, last week in the U.S., we paused to honor the brave men and women of the United States military who have selflessly served our nation. Their dedication, courage, and sacrifice have safeguarded our freedoms and upheld the values we hold dear. If you didn’t get to thank a Veteran, please do it today.

But there are others who are dedicated and make sacrifices. They fight selflessly every day for the benefit of the team. They have huge workloads, often work very long hours, and are burning out.

“Hey, that’s me!” says the MSP owners in the room.

Likely, but that’s not who I am talking about.

Well, who else then works in an MSP, starts early, stays late, takes calls at all hours of the day, has to have a hotspot and VPN for their phone, lives in Autotask mobile, and can’t attend a concert or a sports event without taking an escalation call or dispatching tickets?

Your Service Coordinators.

Take a moment and let that sink in. And I want to be clear that in many cases, you can substitute “Service Manager” and “Operations Director” for Service Coordinator.

Heroes come in many shapes and sizes. Running an MSP takes a lot. The Advanced Global team have talked to so many burned out MSP leaders experiencing apparent mental health issues. This is not right, and we are taking a stand. This series about Finding Freedom is all about helping the MSP community by making sure you all have the basics in place to help kick Chaos to the curb.

Why the basics? We work with lots of MSPs. One constant is that most MSPs are using out-of-the-box Autotask/Datto RMM and/or don’t have the fundamentals down. This means we have to spend a lot of time fixing and teaching the basics – time that could be better spent actually helping the MSP team grow the business, earn raving fan clients, and being able to take that long family vacation or off the grid weekend.

So, let’s work together to build a strong, Chaos-free, Professional, MSP industry where we all get to enjoy the lives we were meant to live.

To do that, we need to take a brief break from our discussion on all the things you need in Autotask to properly fill out a ticket. I know many are anticipating the Issues and Sub-Types list I am going to give away, but please bear with me, as it seems important to talk about how to hire a Service Coordinator and properly support them.

Why You Need a Service Coordinator

First off, let’s be clear: You need a Service Coordinator. With Stuck Tickets ruining the Service Delivery Performance metrics, what you need is someone to take total ownership of all open tickets and drive each one from New to Complete.  That person is worth every penny you pay them.  Just having that person in place and having the authority to take total ownership will make Techs at least 10% more efficient.  We know - we have the data to prove it.

Would you drive your car to your mechanic, park it out front, and just walk away?  

Of course not.  

Your mechanic has an intake process – owner, contact information, make and model, license plate, problem, and expectations. Maybe even a promise when you can pick the car back up.  

So why do you not treat your Customer’s request the same way?  

Actually, why bother having an intake person at all? 

I mean, you could just have automation (RMM and Incoming Email Processing) dump the tickets in the queue and let the techs figure it out.  

Sounds like a plan, doesn’t it? (Please tell me this is not really happening at your MSP right now.) 

Marketing can claim we put the Customer first, that Service to the Customer is what makes us special, and money can be saved not having Service Coordinators. 

The clients won’t really notice anyway…right? 

Service Coordinators are Indispensable 

Without a Service Coordinator, chaos reigns, and that chaos costs you a significant amount of profit. This is why we strongly believe that a Service Coordinator is indispensable!  

We also believe this because a Service Coordinator is so much more than a dispatcher.  

And while “Director of First Impressions” is a great job title, all the client cares about is: “When are you going to fix my S… (Stuff)?”  So, having someone to properly intake a client’s request and take ownership of all open tickets, driving them from New to Completion, is Superior Service to the Customer.  

Now we understand that if you only have 3 Techs, it may not make financial sense to hire a Service Coordinator. It absolutely makes sense from a “Service to the Customer” perspective; however, deferring the hire may be what needs to be done to keep the lights on.  

The 4th hire, however, better be a Service Coordinator! 

Small MSP Shops Aren’t Alone

One of our team members was a small MSP owner and has worked for 3 small MSPs in leadership. He would put me on a spit and roast me over a fire if he ever thought I was leaving out the small MSPs (5 or less Techs). In fact, this article is more written for you than the big guys. (To further show our commitment to small MSPS, I point out that the original idea for this series came from our meetings on version 2.0 of our Small MSP Improvement Program.)

The big shops will hire multiple Service Coordinators who will work shifts. There should be a coverage plan for after-hours, lunches, and breaks. There should be a Service Manager to help with coverage and take those after-hours escalations.

Even in a 3 Tech world, the concept of a Service Coordinator is needed and can be approximated in a split between two people: one of the Techs trained to properly intake client requests and you, the owner.  The important thing is that everyone knows who has the intake duty for that time block, that is on the schedule, and that every business hour has a designated Intake person.

Killing the Service Coordinator

So, let’s say you have 3 or 4 Techs and can make that hire. You then hire the SC and tell them to figure it out fairly quickly so they can start saving you that money. So, they stumble around Autotask and do a lot of reading. Maybe they find my blog or YouTube channel and ask for funding to buy our Service Coordinator Training or Small MSP Improvement Program and are denied.

So, they build what they can from my blogs while the owner sells stuff and works with the Techs on projects, meaning no backup coverage for the SC even on holidays and days off.

This leaves the SC to take all the calls, handle all the queues, and more and more. Eventually, they end up effectively being the Service Coordinator and Service Manager, trying to figure out how to get it all done with constant new requests from the owner. Oh, and the SC isn’t management, so they can only ask the Techs to do things - pretty please.

If the SC is hourly, then when they punch out at 6 or 7 pm, maybe they get a respite while dreading tomorrow. If they are salary, then they are getting calls 24 hours a day, waking up earlier and earlier each day to handle all the tasks and requests, and likely are horribly underpaid.

We’ve heard the same story told by many SCs who have met on the free calls we ran over the last 4 years. This is an absolute recipe for an industry-wide mental health disaster. And it’s got to stop!

So, what can you do?

Hire with a job description – and stick to it!

Have a coverage plan for when the SC is on break/lunch/off-duty

Have an Autotask dashboard for the Tech covering the SC to use

Document and train the backups on how to do the triage job

Additional responsibility means additional pay. ‘Nuff said

SCs should have a scheduled meeting with their manager at least weekly

Allow paid vacation and holidays

Budget for training programs

Avoid fuzzy edges with division of work between SC and Owner

Require all Techs to write and maintain documentation

ASK your staff what they need and what they are going through

The list above is likely just scratching the service. I want to hear your story, to let you know that you are heard and loved and appreciated, and to find out what else should be on that list.

Summary

You may not believe me, but it is absolutely possible to run or manage an MSP without needing daily therapy or working 100 hour weeks. In fact, you (yes, even a Service Coordinator) can even go on that 10-day cruise without a laptop. (Really!)

The foundation of a successful MSP, small or large, is the fundamentals. And not killing your employees. So, we’re going back to the basics to make sure we’re all on the same page. Your homework for next week is to look at how your Service Coordinator operates and see if some changes are in order. Or to see if you can hire one.

If you’re feeling burned out, please read this. You’re no good to anyone if you’re not healthy.

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Need Service Coordinator Training? Just want another pair of eyes on your Autotask PSA Software to see if YOU are fully using it? We can complete an evaluation that will tell you exactly what you need to fix or improve.

Talk to us: info@agmspcoaching.com

Stephen & Co

Resources: 