Stop the Madness! Use the Autotask Escalation Report
As we get deeper into March, many MSP owners and Service Delivery Professionals are looking at the calendar in disbelief:
“What happened to the plans from January?”
“How did my Tech training goal from February already get behind?”
“Why is there no progress being made in March?”
Welcome, Autotask Warriors and Gladiator Community members, to the madness of March, when MSPs are far enough into the year that they have a fairly good idea where they are at. Or, in many cases, where they are not.
Time is running short to get your house (MSP) in order
Remember back in December and January when we put all those plans together and had all those high hopes? Hopefully, you are rocking your plan and already seeing the benefits of using the proper reports and an optimized Autotask to increase profits and create raving fan Clients. If not, it’s time to get moving and stop the madness.
Why the hurry? MSPs should be focused on taking excellent care of Clients - profitably. Every day you delay could be money lost.
MSP executives, you have so many things on your plate, the sooner you start working, the more likely it will happen. MSP conference season is getting into high gear with Xchange in Orlando and Right of Boom (an excellent event) recently. Plus, there is CompTIA CCF and Channel Partners this week. So, time is running short to get your house in order before all the distractions pull you away.
Meet the Autotask “Escalate Rate by Resource Report”
The last few weeks, I’ve talked about some things you can implement quickly to gain clarity on your MSP’s operations and start making improvements. This week, I’m going to talk about the “Escalate Rate by Resource Report.” (As a reminder, this is more for the DIY folks – if you have questions you can post in the Gladiator Community for help. Or email info@agmspcoaching.com if you would like my team to build and train you on this report).
This report offers many benefits. It helps with these very important questions:
Where do the technicians need training?
Which technician needs training?
What software/hardware does the team need training on?
Where should you focus technician improvement and training?
Is another Tier 3 needed to handle the escalations?
Is someone not pulling their weight?
What you need to make this report work great
Let’s walk you through reading the report and seeing how to get these answers. For the report to work great, you need to:
Create a UDF (User Defined Field) for escalated.
Create a WFR (Workflow Rule) that says when the status is changed to escalate, then turn the UDF to yes.
This is the first step in getting the report to work.
The report is looking for the technician’s name in the resolution plan. This is going to be the 1st technician that tried and was not able to solve it. Not all escalations are a bad thing, so you will pay attention to the percentage of tickets being escalated.
The 5% Ticket Escalation Rule
A technician should not have to escalate more than 5% of their overall tickets. The more tickets they get, the more they can escalate and still be in 5%. How do we get this number? Easy, we take the number of tickets the resolution plan technician has and divide by the number of tickets that have been flagged as escalated.
Now, time to investigate: start with someone who is over 5% and get a detail of the tickets that they touched. Then, look for a common theme in them. Maybe it is the same:
Customer
Time of day
Or even the same type of issue
Now what?
If it is the same customer or the same time of day, that is a problem with the employee.
If it is the same issue, then get them some more training on it.
This will make them more valuable and show that you care. You do want to retain your techs and give them more than just money, right? Consider giving them a plan for improvement.
When a training Lunch ‘N Learn is helpful…
You will also want to see whether the other Techs have to escalate the same type of issues? If so, then schedule a training Lunch ‘N Learn for them. This can be done by contacting the vendor or having the technician who is the Champion for that product give it.
Don’t know what a Champion is? There should be a skill sheet that shows what your team can and does work on. You should have these marked as intermediate, accelerated or Champion. The Champion is responsible for making sure that when an update comes out, they warn the team of any issues and how to fix them.
Closed ticket count is an unfair metric. Here’s why.
When you start looking at the report, it will be monthly. You can also look at this report weekly, if needed. Beware: when you first start running this, it may look bad. Why do I say that?
Because the technician does not know you can find this information easily in a report. Often, they feel that they can get away with escalating - when there is a good chance they have escalated some tickets that they could have solved (if only they would have taken the time to try).
This is a reason why we do not like to measure the closed ticket count. It is an unfair metric. Anyone can close the password resets and they only take 5 minutes. But a server ticket will take longer to work. So, this causes one tech to close 4 times as many as another. When Techs know they are graded by closed tickets, sometimes they are tempted to escalate when the going gets tough.
We’re here for you! What can we help with?
Does that all make sense? Does this report seem useful? Have questions on the Filters and Sorts used in this report? I would love to continue the discussion over at our Service Delivery Gladiator’s Community. You can check it out at https://sdgcommunity.agmspcoaching.com/.
I look forward to seeing you here next week as I try and help you stop the madness. It’s almost April, so you need to start now. My company, Advanced Global MSP Coaching, is there for you if you need help eliminating Chaos, increasing profit, and creating a Zen-like environment where you and your Team WANT to come to work each day and your Clients are raving fans. I’m happy to take a look at your situation and get you some help – info@agmspcoaching.com
Until next week,
Steve & Co.