MSP Worst Practices – Learn from the Mistakes
Table of Contents
1) Interrogation-Style Job Interviews
2) 100% Every Minute Time Tracking
4) Senior Technicians as Managers
Table of Contents
1) Interrogation-Style Job Interviews
2) 100% Every Minute Time Tracking
4) Senior Technicians as Managers
INTRODUCTION
Here at Support Adventure we have helped over 40 MSPs improve their processes and staffing, helping them become more efficient. With our birds-eye view of the industry, we have identified some common practices that are inhibiting the MSPs from reaching their potential. Learn from their mistakes and make sure your MSP isn’t making the same mistakes!
INTERROGATION-STYLE JOB INTERVIEWS
The best job interviews are the ones where both the applicant and interviewer feel comfortable and where there’s cultural compatibility between them both.
Great candidates get to choose between different companies, and are also the ones interviewing the company to see if it would be a place they would want to work at, finding the best environment for them to grow and flourish.
We have a technician, Jonathan from South Africa, who had two interviews with interested companies. The first was an interrogation-style interview while the latter was a friendly conversation-style interview.
Jonathan ended up choosing to work for the company that provided him a more pleasant interview experience, since he immediately felt more comfortable and could envision a better work environment.
100% EVERY MINUTE TIME TRACKING
It is unreasonable to request staff to track every single minute that they spend working on your helpdesk, especially in a remote-working relationship? We think so!
MSPs that have a profit-first mentality might be missing out on the best talent due to the environment and we consistently find that MSPs that engage in such tracking do not create the best environments for their staff.
If you are engaging in such every-minute time tracking, consider finding a better balance between tracking your employees’ time and their results, ultimately creating a more pleasant working environment and leaving them time to breathe.
CHAT ESCALATION
While chat can be a valuable part of an escalation strategy, relying on it as the only way that your team escalates can harm the consistency and effectiveness of your escalation policy. Balls will get dropped when messages are missed and replies will come back when the escalating technician is already working on something else, having not been able to relinquish ownership of the ticket and pass it on to someone competent in completing it. This will all happen outside of the ticketing system, making it hard for your management to see what really happened with the ticket and why it took so long to complete and satisfy your clients’ needs.
While it can be useful as an initial strategy to reach out for help, we recommend combining chat with a transfer-based escalation policy which ensures that the ticket is properly dealt with when chat fails to provide immediate help in solving issues.
Watch this video to find out more.
SENIOR TECHNICIANS AS MANAGERS
In the process of working with dozens of MSPs, we see that one of the mistakes they make on their path to growth is promoting senior technicians to management roles.
Some companies assume that when technicians that have technical abilities that go above and beyond, they will be able to successfully provide leadership to others. Oftentimes, they lack the social skills and experience which is required to manage people and build a harmonious team.
Those building a career in the MSP Industry may ultimately make a decision to either become manager or become super-knowledgable technicians. Not everyone is cut out for both.
TECHNICIAN RING GROUPS
We often find that MSPs think the best way that their clients can be served is to have a technician pick up the phone. This may be true in certain situations, however, by implementing this policy in a less than optimal way, you can quickly end up with a situation where your staff are stressed out from the lack of focus they have on their tasks and your clients never know what will happen when they dial your helpdesk, simply because the way you have structured it leads to no consistency in who will answer and how ready and willing they will be to provide your clients great service.
WINGING IT WHEN TRAINING NEW STAFF
One of the worst practices we see MSP do are winging it when training their new staff.
At some MSPs, on the first day of new hires they might not have all the credentials made, and no prepared training material. They onboard staff by throwing them onto the helpdesk, and learning while they go. Connecwise/Continuum University is also not the most ideal way train staff, especially the experiences hires.
After your MSP grows past 5-10 technician, it’s important to have a plan when you hire new staff. We recommend making step-by-step guides on how your MSP uses to tools and software. Video is the best format for such training guides.
WHO ARE WE
Support Adventure is an MSP-focused remote staffing agency that specializes in sourcing, training, and integrating remote workers into businesses.
HOW WE CAN HELP
STAFFING
Our staff members reside on three continents and can offer continuous 24/7 support with a follow the sun service model
CONSULTATION
Our birds-eye view on the MSP industry gives us the knowledge and experience to identify practices that will significantly improve your MSP helpdesk and operations