Too Many Tickets to Paradise (When is Open Tickets TOOOOOOO Much)

Highlights of what you’ll read here: 

• Getting your tickets down to the right levels 

• To hire or not to hire? Read this first! 

• A short-staffing calculation looks at… 

• Where the 20 Tickets per Tech comes from 

• Schedule and Push out I/M/A/Cs 

• Addressing the BLT (Backlog List of Tickets) 

• Why to run a Noise per Seat report 

• Your Express Pass for instant help 

“I've got a surprise especially for you, 

Something that both of us have always wanted to do. 

We've waited so long, waited so long. 

We've waited so long, waited so long…” 

And with those lyrics from Eddie Money’s 1977 song “Two Tickets to Paradise,” I welcome you back, Autotask Warriors. As always, it’s great to have you here for our discussions, where we focus on using the Autotask software to grow your MSP. 

Back to the lyrics and what many MSPs have waited so long for: getting your ticket counts down to the right levels. Too many, and your ship sinks in the Bermuda Triangle. Too few, and you’re burning money at the gift shop.  

We have mentioned many times that more than 20 Tickets per Tech is too much. But how do you reduce the number? To hire or not to hire? 

Before jumping the gun and going out to hire someone, stop for a minute. Take a deeper look at what is going on. A Short-Staffing calculation takes into consideration: 

• Resource Productivity (Resource Utilization) 

• True Workload – is the Backlog List of Tickets expanding or contracting? 

• Tech Efficiency – Average time per ticket. 

• Noise per Seat – The # of tickets per Managed Service End User or End Point. 

“This is great,” you say, “but we need help now.” The fastest way to get help is to use the Express Pass I am handing out. Just email Info@AGMSPCoaching.com for a Free No-Obligation Short-Staffing Evaluation. Use the subject “Express Pass.”  

Do you like to plan your own trips and skip the travel agent? Then you need to figure out how to reduce the volume of tickets while you wait to see if you need to hire. Here are some thoughts on what Steve would do if he were in your situation (and I have been there). 

Where Does the 20 Tickets per Tech Come From? 

The first thing is to recognize where the 20 Tickets per Tech comes from. 20 Tickets is about 10 to 15 hours’ worth of work (Tech efficiency is typically 30-45 minutes per Ticket), so it is a day and half to two days’ worth of work.  

In other words, if no one calls or emails (Yeah right, when has that ever happened?**), the Techs will be out of work in two days. If there is less than a days’ worth of work on each Tech, they tend to slow down and let the work expand into a full day. If there is more than two days’ worth of work, they tend to speed up and cut corners to catch up. And, you guessed it…quality takes a nosedive – or the Techs just get used to the stress and stop caring, writing it off as “that is the way life is at an MSP” (you see this a LOT of this on Reddit). Not so: with proper management, NO TECH NEEDS TO BE STRESSED OUT. 

** Note: I still remember the day when we received no new Client requests between 7 and 11 am. We thought surely the Incoming Email Processor or MS Exchange was down. Nope, just one of those mysterious anomalies - a once in a lifetime quiet morning that we made up for in the afternoon. (Never tell a pitcher he is working a no-hitter in the 9th, and never talk about your team having no tickets…) 

As a side note, a good Remote Desktop Support Tech will complete 2,880 tickets per year, so 20 Open Tickets is about 7% of a years’ worth of Tickets. 

Now that we have a better understanding of workload, here are the bites of the Elephant that should be taken: 

1. Schedule and Push out I/M/A/Cs 

2. Backlog List of Tickets (BLT Mitigation Strategy) 

3. Noise per Seat report 

Schedule and Push out I/M/A/Cs 

By taking the non-Break/Fix work (IMACs) and pushing them out to make room for reactive work, you buy the Techs a little time to get caught up – 3-4 days. Eventually, this work will need to be done – next week rather than this week. Trouble is, as new work flows in - even with the push out - the MSP operations will be back in the same situation. 

But this little bit of temporary breathing room will reduce the stress on the Techs long enough for them to think clearly, develop a plan of attack, and execute the plan before the tidal wave hits again. 

But how? Simply pull the tickets from the Ready to Engage widget or off this week’s calendar. Start with the lowest estimated hours, schedule them in 2+ hour blocks on the Tech’s calendar for next week Thursday or Friday afternoon (the slowest two days of the week). If they do not all fit in next week, schedule the remaining ones for the week after, but going out more than two weeks runs the risk of encouraging squeaky wheel Clients and Account Managers.  

Keep in mind, if the Service Requests have been hanging around for a while, they will also show up in the Backlog List of Tickets. 

Backlog List of Tickets 

In another article, we discussed ticket backlog. Addressing the Backlog List of Tickets (BLT) and moving forward with a BLT mitigation strategy will typically reduce the workload on each Tech be more than 5 Tickets each. 

First, when we mention a BLT, what are we talking about? 

A ticket backlog is a combination of ticket groups that are not meeting expectations:  

1. Incidents, and Quick Hit A/Cs < 1hr over 7 days old.  

2. M/A/Cs < 4hrs, M/A/Cs > 4hrs ,and Installations more than 30 days old.  

Here is the BLT mitigation strategy Advanced Global Recommends: 

1. The session actually starts on Wednesday morning when the Backlog List of Tickets report is scheduled to be delivered to all Service Delivery Team members. 

2. When Thursday afternoon rolls around, it is all hands on deck. All projects and other scheduled work are scheduled around the Thursday afternoon Backlog List of Tickets killing party. The Ready to Engage Widgets are depleted as much as possible. One person is on standby for critical/severity-1 requests, but the rest are focused on closing all the tickets on the Backlog List of Tickets report. Get ‘r done! 

For more information, here is a link to the full BLT SoP from the Advanced Global Service Delivery Gladiator Community Library: Backlog List of Tickets Killing Party SOP.docx 

Run a Noise per Seat report  

A Noise per Seat report will identify which Clients are being the most demanding. With this information in hand, you can develop a strategy to reduce the noise. For example: 

1. End user education so they are empowered to avoid issues (or self help when they do occur). 

2. Scripting in the RMM tool that drives more self-healing. 

3. Uncover network improvements (project work) to make the network more stable. 

Steve’s Summary: 

You can see by these three recommendations that: 

1. Pushing out the IMACS is only a short-term temporary solution. 

2. BLT mitigation strategy is a mid-term/long-term solution. We are aware of MSPs that run this strategy on a continuous basis, and one of them never has a ticket more than 14 days old. 

3. Noise per Seat is a long-term solution, that should be run every quarter even without a tidal wave of Tickets. 

So, maybe 2 Tickets aren’t quite the way to Paradise, but if you follow the steps above you can get those Tickets down to 20, which gives your Techs the best working environment, your Clients the best experience, and maybe now everyone can actually take a vacation.  

Have questions? Use your Express Pass - email Info@AGMSPCoaching.com for a Free No-Obligation Short-Staffing Evaluation. Use the subject “Express Pass.”  

The elephant in the room:   

Who is Advanced Global, and why should we listen to them?  

Recently, someone we’ve been in communication with since DattoCon 2018, who was faithfully reading our articles, commented that up until a few months ago, “I really did not know what Advanced Global does.” So here are a few bullet points to let anyone interested know who we are and what we do:  

1. We Are – the Autotask Global Service Delivery Authority  

2. We Help – MSPs thrive  

3. We Solve – Service Delivery issues, inefficiencies, and challenges by making sure that:  

   1. techs know what to work on next  

   2. someone is managing all open tickets and driving them to completion  

   3. the staffing levels are correct, and the workload is balanced   

   4. Real-Time Time Entry is a cultural habit  

   5. the Client has a great client experience  

   6. profit is maximized  

   7. Autotask is being fully leveraged  

   8. the historical data that is in the Autotask software is accessible to benchmark, track & USE effectively  

   9. the Service Delivery operations can scale  

   10. projects are completed On-Time and On-Budget  

   11. the company can grow  

   12. MSPs know what they don’t know  

4. Our Tools:   

   1. Autotask “Best in Class” standard build  

   2. Our MSP robust Service Delivery SOP library  

   3. Advanced Live Reports  

   4. Expertise in providing a transformational experience  

Note: We are not philosophers; we are doers with 31+ years of Service Delivery experience, bringing real Service Delivery Improvement change, profitability, and Best in Class performance.  

We start our engagements by offering a FREE No-Obligation PSA Configuration Evaluation   

Steve & Co