Your MSP ticketing system

Your MSP ticketing system allows the MSP to take your IT support to the next level! Let’s face it.  Technology has forced companies to move at such a rapid pace that it is impossible to keep up without technology.  As a result, we have to do more than ever before in a shorter period of time. Undoubtedly, the expectations in both work and private life are at an all-time high.

Indeed, customers expect an instantaneous response – immediate support. Not only put do they put this pressure on themselves, but they also expect the same from everyone that serves them. Without a doubt, I don’t think anyone is feeling the pressure more than MSPs.

The Pressure of a Managed Service Provider (MSP) to Perform

Imagine tracking all of your customer requests and orders manually.  Likely, you would realize that rather quickly you need a system to track it.  Similarly, that is what a ticketing system does – only on a granular scale.

Above all, a ticketing system helps the MSP be more efficient and maintain control over thousands of tickets.  In particular, it tracks hundreds of metrics and ensures the systems and processes are working efficiently and effectively.

What Does the Ticketing System Measure?

Ticketing systems measure the key performance indicators (KPIs) against industry benchmarks. As a result, KPIs can help a company determine policies and standardization for continuous improvement.

Some of the more common KPIs measured in IT include:

1. Ticket resolution time
2. Response time
3. Timeslip lag
4. Average wait time
5. Peak times
6. Abandoned call detail
7. High volume users
8. Incident source – web, email, or phone
9. Escalation frequency
10. Meantime to resolution

Yet, an MSP must have a powerful ticketing system if they are to support hundreds or thousands of client environments across multiple industries.

Why Is It So Important?

In general, IT departments that do not have a strong ticketing system are inefficient at best.  For instance, I have worked with a lot of companies that had an internal IT department. Many times, their ticketing system couldn’t even produce the most basic report, such as:

1. How many calls per month?
2. Peak times
3. Most common types of issues?

This basic information would allow me to determine the maturity level of the organization, how I could help them, the type of work I could expect, and how to staff appropriately.

Now imagine if an MSP ticketing system was just as limited, which many are; how could they improve the delivery for you?  Therefore, it is vital that you make sure the provider has invested in the right tools to sufficiently service your account.

Going the Cheap Route

Many MSPs start with a single engineer who has gone out on his/her own.  Unfortunately, it can take several years before an MSP is profitable enough to do things the right way. As a result, many small MSPs can’t afford a quality ticketing system because it is expensive to license, set up, and maintain. Therefore, they go with a cheaper option and lose all efficiencies in the process.

(Note: This is a very good reason you shouldn’t follow your favorite IT guy when he goes independent. You will lose service quality.)

Why should you pay the same hourly rate for an MSP who does not have the right tools?  Rather, wouldn’t it be best to hire a company that has invested wisely in their technology to service you?

My best recommendation for you is to make sure the system they use can track the information mentioned above so they can continuously improve their performance to you and their other clients.

Best MSP Ticketing Systems on the Market

There are several ticketing systems on the market specifically designed for MSPs.  Accordingly, they range from free to thousands of dollars in licensing annually.  Consequently, the free ones not only lack security, but they also do not have the necessary reporting capabilities to continuously improve their own performance. In contrast, the more expensive ones have all the bells and whistles, including monitoring software and asset tagging.

After reviewing multiple ticketing platforms INSI chose ConnectWise.  We feel ConnectWise does the best job of eliminating time-intensive and repetitive maintenance tasks.  Further, we found it to be the cleanest and most and intuitive ticketing system on the market.  Last, this platform provides a full solution with both asset tracking and remote management monitoring.  Most important, we can allow our clients with internal IT people to use the system on their accounts!

Do You Want to Know More About Ticketing Systems?

If you would like to know more about MSP Ticketing Systems and how it affects you, visit Amazon or Barnes & Noble for a copy of the book IT Outsourcing Secrets – A Small Business Guide to Comparing IT Support Companies.

First – What is Preventive Maintenance (PM)?

Preventive Maintenance is a quarterly or semi-annual planned network checkup.   Moreover, it ensures everything on your network is running safely and properly.  Subsequently, things like this are what make the difference between a good MSP and a break/fix shop.

The best thing about PMs is that they equip the provider to identify issues that may occur over the next 3-6 months before your next checkup. Then, if work is required, they will alert you with any hardware/software cost and estimated time to resolve the issue.  Further, they take this time to perform updates and patches to keep your system safe and running smoothly.

What Are The Benefits of a Good Maintenance Program?

There is one thing for certain when it comes to technology: things go wrong.  Strange things too.  Setting and configurations change.  The backups and monitoring stop working.  These things often manifest themselves during the worst possible times.  Yet, PMs will definitely decrease your downtime by providing a more secure, efficient, and reliable way to keep your network healthy.

What Does Preventive Maintenance Include?

So, what should be included in your network PM plan?  At INSI we check the following:

1. Documentation – keep all documentation on the network up to date.
2. Backups – make sure your backups are working properly.
3. Updates & Patches – performed on both applications and operating systems.
4. Cable Checks – check cabling and fiber to ensure it is not degraded.
5. Errors – review the logs and check the hardware for potential failure in the near future.
6. Network Utilization – Check devices for network utilization or any network communication errors.
7. User Accounts – make sure employees who have left the company have been deleted and verify all administrator access on the network.
8. Disk Usage – Check drive space and recommend changes.
9. Monitoring Tools – make sure daily reporting is working properly.
10. System Security – make sure your security setting and configuration are correct and working.
11. Expiration – Check and verify expiration on hardware warranties, DNS name registration, and vendor software agreements.
12. Password Policy – Verify password complexity and expiration is enabled on accounts.

 The IT World Without PM Due Diligence

Alternatively, imagine you had a major ransomware attack your system.  In the perfect world, your MSP would simply roll back time to the last backup.  As a result, you might miss a few hours, or days, depending on your backup frequency, but you will recover.

On the other hand, what happens if you find out your backups weren’t working at all?  Without a doubt, you would have to pay the ransomware.  In addition, the virus in this scenario likely came from unpatched Microsoft Windows 7 systems.

This was just one example of how PMs keep your system safe and secure.  However, multiple stories can be told.

Why Would My Provider Skip Preventive Maintenance?

Unfortunately, many providers will not include this in their package because it is time-consuming and not billable.  Billable is king when it comes to managed services providers.  A solid preventive maintenance visit will cost them 25-60 minutes per server and 15-20 minutes per network device.  Of course, the length of time on each server depends on the application.  In addition, they have to write up their findings which are variable.  Therefore, when all is said and done, this can get pretty costly for the provider.  Also, keep in mind, this is a non-billable cost every 3-6 months depending on the contract terms.

Engineers have other reasons to skip this step.  If they are held to high billable time, this is a very easy target to simply fill out the paperwork without doing the work.

How Do You Know if PMs Are Being Performed?

All server PMs are scheduled onsite. This visit allows the IT Support Company to perform all maintenance that could not be done remotely as well as provide them the opportunity to review their findings face-to-face.  Consider it a red flag if you don’t see them.

INSI’s Preventive Maintenance Promise!

INSI believes PMs are absolutely necessary to support our clients.  When we prevent problems from happening, we have longer tenure with our clients, established trust, and fewer catastrophes.  Further, we do not hold our engineers to a billable time incentive plan.  Rather, they are measured by doing what is best for the client.  PMs certainly fall into that category!

Do You Want More Information on Preventive Maintenance?

If you would like to know more about Preventive Maintenance and how it affects you, visit Amazon or Barnes & Noble for a copy of the book IT Outsourcing Secrets – A Small Business Guide to Comparing IT Support Companies.