In any business, a fair expectation for employees is to set productivity goals and standards. We use these to measure how well someone is doing, to make financial decisions, and to create a record of performance over time.
At Certified CIO, we internally measure these performance markers for employees which assists in determining salary, service charges, and gauging profit margins. We also use them to assess how productive employees are and how their levels of productivity change as they gain more experience in providing our services.
It should be no different for companies that serve roles formerly occupied by an in-house employee. For example, as a Managed IT Services Provider for small and medium businesses, we expect our customers to have high expectations for the services they are receiving and the value thereof. It can be a challenge at times to communicate those service objectives to the customer in a succinct yet effective manner.
In order to combat this, we are working on our manner in which we communicate. The following is a sample report for June that would be distributed to a customer:
While this is only page 1, it provides an easy-to-digest look at several factors we believe to be important to remain transparent with customers.
Open – Client: This number represents the number of currently open tickets, or issues. There are a variety of reasons these tickets could be open, i.e. a sales item under discussion, a repair item waiting on parts, waiting on customer response, or assigned/scheduled to an engineer but not yet resolved.
Waiting on Customer – Client: The number of tickets placed in a status in our CRM software in need of response from the customer. This is helpful to a customer to see if there are items which need response from them.
Avg Response Time (in minutes): The average time from customer ticket creation to “first touch” by Certified CIO.
Average Time to In Progress (in minutes): The average time from customer ticket creation to a ticket actively being worked on (“In Progress” is the name of the ticket status we use internally when we actively begin researching and seeking a resolution to the issue).
Average Time to Resolution (in hours): The average working time from customer ticket creation to ticket close. A ticket can be closed due to issue resolution, bundling of a ticket into a parent issue ticket, or ticket cancellation.
Survey Responses: This section looks at the results of our post-ticket surveys. We currently use a system called “Smileback” which allows customers to give a grade based on a smiling, neutral, or frowning emoji, as well as comments. Including this in the report allows us to review with the customer what we could have done better in neutral or frowning grades. These are broken down by ticket so that we may also review details, either with the customer or internally, of the specific ticket circumstances.
These reports allow our customers to measure how well we are meeting their expectations. Similarly, we use these reports to internally gauge how well we are meeting our service obligations that we set as a company and via contract with customers.
One thing we find with prospective customers is that their MSPs often don’t communicate very well in this regard. While it is easy to assume your MSP is doing a great job, how do you know if you don’t have a method to discuss it, or metrics to use therein?
If you’re not sure how your MSP is doing, let us help you figure it out. We can provide some feedback based on a short phone call. While of course we would love you to come aboard as a customer with us, you are under no obligation to do so—isn’t that worth a few minutes of your time?
If It is, give us a call at (443)283-0666 or click the “Contact Us” button!
