It is a universal truth concerning managed service providers that they must continually evaluate their services to determine ways to automate those things which can and should be automated. The obvious reason for this is that by automating, the MSP can lower their cost of service delivery and reallocate those resources into more profitable areas of service delivery and revenue generation. Great, that's easier said than done, you might say. Let's break it down and examine how even the smallest MSP organization can accomplish this goal.
1) Understanding how you deliver your services is absolutely critical. If you don't understand the intricacies of your own service delivery mechanism, you can't hope to analyze it correctly and make adjustments.
2) Any time you have to manually interact with a trouble tricket, you should look at that as an opportunity to automate. You won't be able to do it every time, but manually handling tickets and customer service issues (other than project work) means less efficiency and less scalability. In other words, you make less money.
3) Adopt technologies that help you automate. Most, if not all of the RMM and PSA platforms have scripting capabilities and you should be using these as much as possible! Doing so will allow you to automate within the boundaries of a platform you probably use on a daily basis.
If you cannot script yourself, consider embracing third party technology companies, like Veloxum, who can assist your managed services practice in becoming more automated and efficient, particularly in those tasks that have become tedious and time consuming. The more tedious of tasks tend to be the ones that, when done manually, can become perilous to your company. The more dull the task the more likely it is that a technician might forget it or do it absentmindedly. Scripting or using automation technologies can greatly improve automation of important but boring processes.
You may be asking what's the benefit in automating. Here are a few immediate benefits.
- Efficiency
- Fewer mistakes due to less human interaction
- Greater scalability
- Higher profitability
There are a lot of benefits to automating. Try making automation a summer project within your managed services practice.
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