As a buzzword, we all understand what automation means. We know that we are taking a manual process and finding a way so that some form of MSP software does it for us. It’s one of the main reasons people purchase software in the first place. Saying software automates a part of your business should be a given by now and isn’t a selling feature on its own.

We asked five MSPs what it means to actually automate. While task automation was critical, it was the effects of that task automation that helped grow their business. MSPs who automated were able to take on more clients, have better communication with their clients, and reduce time their technicians were spending on low value tasks. 

It’s important to realize, automation is here, and it’s not going away.

Automation isn’t about tasks, it’s about opportunities

Frankly, at this point, automation should be part of every MSP and business. But it goes beyond just thinking of ticking off tasks to be completed. Rather, it’s about giving your MSP opportunities to grow in multiple ways that will benefit your team, your business, and your clients. 

Make your employees more productive

While many see automation as that way to reduce menial or repetitive tasks, it should be looked at as a way to give employees time to do other things that are more productive. By giving them more time to work on other things, you can scale your business, take on additional clients and services, and allow employees to be more proactive in how they address problems with clients.

Balancing automation with the client experience

Clients aren’t always fans of automation because they just want to talk to someone. It can be a balancing act to find the right fit for automation in your business, without disrupting the client experience too much. If it’s client facing, it might not be great to automate too much to the point the client isn’t feeling a personal connection anymore. Instead, all the behind-the-scenes tasks can be wrapped up in automation, leaving your employees to focus on delivering a better client experience. 

It’s always an issue knowing exactly, when do you hire that person and or when do you flip the switch and utilize this new [automated] tool that’s going to save us a ton of time. Those are the kind of pieces that you’re constantly evaluating. What tool is out there that’s gonna take away the monotonous piece, or that’s gonna give us better insight or allow us to move faster when we’re taking care of a client or that automates some more things. So, the art form is identifying how much people interaction do we need to have for that client?  What’s the required interaction? What would be a nice interaction? And by that, I mean a client calls in and says, “Oh my gosh, I’m having a problem with my workstation.” Put in a ticket. “But I just need to talk to somebody.”  Sorry. We don’t work that way. We’re automated. So just put the ticket in and then the system will ask you a bunch of questions and it’s going to be so wonderful.

But there’s still people out there that are craving for that communication. And so that’s where, that balance of when do we bring people in, when do we automate. It automates the stuff that the client can’t see, that doesn’t have interaction, that’s the preventative stuff. And that’s the reporting stuff, because man alive, you gotta have this reporting stuff.

Get your employees involved in automation

The fear for many is that automation will cost people jobs. If you automate lower level tasks, then you don’t need a person to do them anymore. We have seen automation cost people jobs in the manufacturing sector, however, MSP owners should be looking to remove the grunt work from their employees. They should also be going a step further and inviting all their employees to participate in the automation conversation to see what parts of their job can be automated – not to put them out of a job, but rather, so they can focus on more meaningful work.

Build automation to reflect the customer journey

One of the largest advantages of automating customer facing activities is that they get completed faster. We don’t think about how password resets are now automated, but that has made clients’ lives easier by being able to do it themselves. By focusing automation on the customer journey, MSPs can create a better client experience. That requires strategic planning to think about the journey the client takes and how best to handle their situation.

Automation is changing how MSPs do business

Whether it’s a better client experience or giving time back to employees, automation is turning into a cornerstone of many MSPs’ future plans for growth. When any MSP thinks of scaling their business, starting with automation is a no-brainer. It can reduce menial tasks, giving your employees more time back to focus on things that will actually improve your business and the client. 

In order to properly implement automation, however, MSPs need to think strategically and long-term. Automation is not a simple check mark beside a task, but rather, a larger business decision that is setting up the MSP for future growth. And those who think of it as a large-scale business growth strategy will see greater rewards for automating their business.

Low ticket volume, peace of mind, and a functional IT environment aren’t fever dreams for Managed Service Providers. They can actually happen. 

The truth is, accomplishing those dreams isn’t a destination you just arrive at – it’s a journey you and your clients take together. Traveling down that road together means you need next-level communication and collaboration with clients.

MSPs intuitively know what needs to be done to improve a clients’ IT environment and experience, so what’s preventing them from achieving those improvements and needs? A lack of shared accountability, no scalable and repeatable processes, and lengthy prep time for QBRs that aren’t getting anything done.

In our latest product update to Lifecycle Manager, we’ve included tools to help you be successful in working more harmoniously with your clients to achieve those shared goals. 

Get a visual assessment of your clients IT environment with Scorecards

It’s easy to overload prospects and existing clients with technical information, resulting in a lack of meaningful action to improve the client experience. Lifecycle Manager’s new Scorecards feature helps alleviate the overwhelming amount of information given to prospects and clients, so you can have deeper conversations with them about their IT environments.

Scorecards are generated automatically from data in Insights and can be customized to produce a visual assessment of a client and their technology. Each scorecard contains a sharable DMI score, focus categories, five-point visual scoring system, feedback and recommendations, and an estimated client investment cost. 

Why do Scorecards matter to you and your clients?

Your clients can instantly see and understand the risks and improvement opportunities in their business operations. Use the built-in Share With Clients function in your next strategic meeting to show clients the high-priority risks and improvement opportunities they need to address or download a PDF version to share with them or follow up afterwards. 

Got a prospect you want to close? Whip up a scorecard to show them where they’re at now to start the conversation of where you will take them.

To get you started, Scorecards is equipped with four auto-generated templates and more customizable categories. 

“It’s super-easy to pump out scorecards. They’re simple, color-coded, and straight to the point. It shows what we’re talking about, where we’re at, and how much it costs.”

Aaron Waters, President, Rayne Technologies

Creating the roadmap to a better client experience

There aren’t any shortcuts to creating a harmonious client experience. Achieving a well-functioning, modernized IT environment, requires a client to say “yes” to your initiatives. But “Yes” is just the beginning; strategic long-term planning is the key to building and maintaining the client experience. We’ve developed a new feature to roadmap your initiatives. 

Roadmaps provide the ability to create, publish, and deliver IT plans directly from your own or set Initiatives in Lifecycle Manager. This feature plots your Initiatives and budget requirements onto a quarterly timeline and allows for a simple visualization of your long-term planning. It’s easy for clients to see and understand the expectations of the initiatives you put in place.

Why do Roadmaps matter to you and your clients?

With a proper roadmap, clients are upgradable when they need to be. 

Start managing your strategy roadmaps dynamically and fluidly with real-time dragging and dropping of Initiatives on the timeline. With support for roadmaps of 1 to 5 years, your MSP can ensure your clients have total visibility of the timelines, budgeting, and priorities required to maintain their business operational uptime.

Roadmaps equip you with the ability to collaborate with your clients to get things done on time, on budget and, most importantly, together to improve their IT experience.

How can you use Roadmaps to do more with your clients?

Does your client have an Initiative set to purchase new servers for Q4, but found some wiggle room in the budget to make it happen earlier? Simply select your Initiative, and move the project ahead of schedule to Q3. 

Roadmaps can also unlock several environment-improving and sales opportunities. Recommendations can be made to allocate funds from Initiatives that are completed under budget to be allocated to other projects in the same or future quarters if you want a head start. 

Saved some money on workstation replacements? Use this information in your next strategic meeting to suggest the funds be allocated to cover other risks, like a warranty for that aging server.

“It’s a huge time saver to simply add in new Initiatives from the templates; especially with new clients. Being able to move them into a quarter in real time makes planning & collaborating with clients so much easier.”

Joe Markert,  CEO, TransformITive

How do Scorecards and Roadmaps fit into a Lifecycle Manager workflow?

As we continue to update our Lifecycle Manager product, we are constantly looking for ways to enhance the entire workflow and have all of Lifecycle Manager’s tools assist in offering a better customer experience. Scorecards and Roadmaps will be added to our lineup of features to help MSPs get a better understanding of what is happening in their clients’ environments, see risks and opportunities, and help generate more revenue for their business. 

Lifecycle Manager now has a unique workflow that sees all of the features work progressively to offer a better IT experience. 

• Select a client you would like to focus on
• Check their DMI score for a quick glance into the trends of the client’s environment
• Click on Insights to surface critical issues present in the environment
• Create a Scorecard to share a visualized executive summary
• Plan an Initiative to address the client’s risk and improvement opportunities
• Visit Roadmaps to view, organize, and manage your client’s Initiatives on a modular, quarterly timeline
• Take action: purchase or extend warranties, replace hardware, optimize your backup operations, or whatever it takes to improve the client’s IT experience
  

“ScalePad is flawless. It seamlessly integrated with our stack and automated our asset lifecycle management. The real-time surfacing of critical asset information and reports allow us to communicate risk to clients and motivate them to refresh problem assets much easier. It’s a game-changer.”
Gil Morris Chief Technology Officer, Clements, Purvis & Stewart, P.C.

A focus on the client experience

ScalePad is focused on bringing our Partners quality products that help them enhance the experience they have with their clients. Our updates to Lifecycle Manager reflect that commitment to continue to improve our product so we can help our Partners better help their clients. This latest update with Scorecards and Roadmaps helps offer our partners a better visualization of all the opportunities in their business, from risk and improvements to sales. 

Try our Free Edition and see our new features for yourself, or request a demo today, and let our team show you how to develop a better experience with your clients. 

Way too often, the Quarterly Business Review (QBR) is treated as a sales activity – an opportunity to get in front of your clients and sell them new warranties and products. 

Unfortunately, also way too often, MSPs don’t have the proper action plan in place for their QBRs and end up putting in plenty of effort but end up getting low results in return. 

The desire is to change to a low effort, high return business review should be the goal of every MSP. To do that, MSPs need to change their focus around the QBR. That means thinking about it as a strategy meeting, not a sales meeting. 

“It’s changing the perspective in that your value isn’t in the products that you sell from a sales perspective, but it’s in your strategy,” said Luis Giraldo, CXO with ScalePad. “The sales QBR is what challenges MSPs to deliver them successfully because the client sees them coming. They become a pushback exercise. It becomes ‘every time you have a meeting with us, you’re trying to sell us more stuff’ because they are happening too regularly.”

Defining roles to achieving shared accountability

For there to be a successful relationship between the MSP and the client where they can focus on strategy over sales, there needs to be established rules that lead to shared accountability. Often responsibility roles are implied and not defined on both sides. For there to be a successful QBR strategic process, both sides need to clearly define the roles they have in the relationship.

By defining the roles and starting with those definitions, MSPs and their clients have laid the foundation for progress forward. These defined roles can work as a benchmark for measuring the progress towards common goals and help align on a decision-making process. 

‍“The foundation or basis of the shared accountability framework is the client understanding clearly, and being told the expectations from them, is to have this role in the relationship,” said Giraldo.

Strategy tools in ScalePad Lifecycle Manager, including the DMI score, Insights, and Initiatives, have changed reporting from the typical measurement of activity to a report that measures outcomes. Combined with defined roles, MSPs, such as Bookspan’s Blacktip IT Services, have focused on strategic outcomes with their clients. Here is how Bookspan and other MSPs use Lifecycle Manager’s Strategy to achieve shared accountability with their clients.

Focus on the partnership

Bookspan is trying to achieve a better relationship with his clients, which is why he focuses heavily on the partnerships he creates with them. He talks personally with his clients about their lives, business, and industry trends during their monthly one-on-one meetings, focusing on strategy rather than sales.

Due to the focus on building the partnership, Bookspan can use the DMI score to measure success for both sides, not just his or his client’s business. By having defined the roles in the partnership, both sides share in the rise and fall of the DMI score.

“This score represents how we maintain the business, and from that, our goal is to keep the score at this goal or higher,” said Bookspan. “And I say ‘our goal,’ not my goal or your goal. That’s how we position it to bring back in that shared accountability.”

By having a better relationship with a client, MSPs can have open communication about what dropping scores mean to their clients and the implications for their business. For example, IT infrastructure will continue to get older, leading to more tickets, and worse user experiences. 

How to drive the strategic meeting

With strategic best practices in place, MSPs can implement strategic meetings with their clients. To improve communications with their clients and make shared accountability a prime focus, Bookspan and his company have ditched the ‘Q’ of QBRs. No longer is it a quarterly business review, but rather, a monthly business review that they have renamed one-on-ones. 

The benefits to more frequent meetings have been

• Continuous communication between both client and MSP
• Proactive planning and budgeting
• A reduction in overload on the client with reports and information

Clients can be automatically sent reports about at-risk hardware before the one-on-one using Lifecycle Manager, giving them time to look into what the report says. In addition, with it being a monthly report and meeting, the client isn’t overwhelmed with information, leading to a more productive discussion with less focus on diving into a long list of line items. 

This strategy, paired with shared accountability goals, has led Bookspan to see his clients reach out proactively to buy new equipment to maintain their high DMI score. Simultaneously, regular communication with the clients builds trust, and clients make better decisions when they have a strong relationship with someone they can trust.

Your internal strategy will drive the QBR strategy and better client experience.

By implementing a strategic QBR process with defined roles and responsibilities and an agreement to share accountability, MSPs can improve the environment around them and elevate the client experience. 

Having a better strategic meeting doesn’t just happen overnight. It requires MSPs to want to have a better client relationship and offer a better experience. For some MSPs, that means focusing less on sales and more on outcomes and goals. For others, it means actually having communication with their clients beyond just emailing reports and asking for approval to buy new equipment. 

To achieve shared accountability, you need your own strategy to drive the strategic meetings with clients. That includes:

1. Using a shared accountability framework like DMI
2. Clearly defining the roles and responsibilities for both yourself and the client
3. Proactively budget and plan with clients
4. Continuously communicating with your client about goals and the impact you can have
5. Providing multiple avenues to improve their environment

“We have heavily focused on defining how we have a better internal experience and how that, in turn, results in a better customer experience,” said Bookspan. “The two are not interchangeable and distinct, but a great employee experience results in a better customer experience.”

‍See how MSPs are using the DMI score and Lifecycle Manager Strategy as part of their strategic QBR process by trying your free edition today.

A quarterly business review (QBR) isn’t an hour and a half of just reading and going over reports for Darrin LeBlanc, the Client Engagement Manager with PEI. Instead, the QBR is now a half-hour of engaging conversation about what they see happening with their client’s IT infrastructure. Then, they dive into what they should do about it and what else is coming up in the future that should be on their radar. 

‍The business changed at PEI when they started performing actual quarterly business reviews with their clients, rather than just sending quotes to clients with anything that was expiring. The quarterly business review became a chance to engage with customers at a deeper level and approach them with a plan a solution for their expiring IT infrastructure instead of just consuming them with reports and extensive quotes for replacement parts. 

‍Now quarterly business reviews are completed regularly, every three months like they are supposed to be. LeBlanc goes into the QBR looking to have a conversation with their clients about how to best solve their problems, rather than trying to make a sale.

‍“On the actual day of the quarterly business review, we’re with the client, and we go over the materials that are presented and talk to them about if it’s okay that it’s expiring, and what are they planning,” said LeBlanc. “It has given us a chance to actually engage with the clients and look together to ask questions because sometimes they don’t think of all the questions that we have about what we see on reports. Now, it’s an engaging conversation about what we see, and here’s what we think we should do about it. Those types of things tend to make us look more professional.”

‍Executing a successful quarterly business review should be a common practice for every MSP. But, unfortunately, many MSPs are stuck in a pattern of just using the quarterly interval as a reminder to send reports and quotes to their clients without context, rather than using it as an opportunity to engage in meaningful conversations. 

‍Let’s look at quarterly business reviews for MSPs and dive into what makes them essential to a scaling MSP business. ‍

What is a quarterly business review?‍

By definition, a quarterly business review is just that; a review of the business that happens quarterly with the client. It’s a meeting where you discuss their business and how you can support them. It’s not a meeting where you are demanding tactical action, such as asking clients to specifically purchase new equipment or talk about training additional employees. 

‍It’s often said that quarterly business reviews are strategic, rather than tactical, in nature. This suggests that the review time is an opportunity to engage with the client about the future business plans and goals and strategize how you can deliver on those goals by adding additional value.

PEI used to send their clients quotes from a spreadsheet they exported out of ConnectWise for any equipment expiring to review on a call separate from the QBR. The QBR calls were over an hour in length and mostly consisted of reviewing reports. According to LeBlanc, clients usually did not accept or show up to the meetings. To fix these issues, LeBlanc removed the heavy emphasis on reports and shifted the QBR meetings to a team-centric approach, having each of the PEI client care team members discuss the agenda items.

Reports were sent to their clients with a brief synopsis, giving them a chance to prepare questions. This turned out to be too much to ask a client to digest prior to the QBR, and the reports were phased out. On the day of the quarterly business review, LeBlanc and the client instead spent their time on more meaningful dialogue about how PEI could support their future business goals.

“You want to have a conversation with people, not make them read a bunch of reports,” said LeBlanc. “It’s not a homework assignment. After a few QBR sessions, we realized what people were looking for. So, we cut the number of reports down and held more of a conversation with people.”

‍By focusing on more strategic outcomes, you step away from being a vendor to the client and become more of a business advisor. It says you are more concerned about their business outcomes than making a sale. And more importantly, that you want to help them succeed. This builds trust in the relationship with the client, who will see you as a part of their business planning, rather than just a vendor to buy equipment and warranties from or call when in need of service. 

Why is it important to have a quarterly business review?‍

Whether it’s the early stages of your MSPs growth or even with more established managed service providers, QBRs are essential for long-term business growth, and should be essential to your long-term MSP business plan. 

‍For new MSPs, it’s an early opportunity to build a relationship with your client that can help nurture their own business. 

‍It’s also an opportunity for experienced MSPs to reestablish those one-on-one relationships, even when growth in new clients makes it difficult to sustain. 

‍No matter what stage of your own business lifecycle you are in, however, QBRs are a great way to maintain a strong relationship critical to your own success. 

QBRs are crucial to an MSP business because of those strong customer relationships. It’s an opportunity to have meaningful discussions that allow you to highlight the return on investment your client is getting from your services and products. And that helps to reinforce your value to your client.

‍Engaging conversations between you and your client will lead to an honest discussion about your client’s overall business health, their future objectives, and highlights their successes. By understanding those values, goals, objectives, and successes, MSPs can tailor their own strategy for maintaining the IT infrastructure to match their customer’s outcomes rather than their own. 

‍MSPs who regularly perform quarterly business reviews leave little doubt that they provide exceptional service in their clients’ minds. Especially those who show more significant focus on their client’s business. This will help remove any question of whether or not they will renew with you. They will see you as a critical part of their success and future growth, rather than just as a provider of service. 

‍In the end, the idea around QBRs is to move your client’s business forward, which naturally will move your business forward. A customer’s success is your own success, even more so if you make your QBR about their outcomes. If clients feel your needs, business goals, and even profits are more important than their own, it gives them a good reason to look for another provider. 

What to include in your quarterly business review?

The quarterly business review is not a place to dump all the out-of-warranty servers and workstations into a spreadsheet and hand it over to the client. It’s also not a place to pitch buying specific products or services, or even going line by line and seeing what servers should be covered or replaced.

What should be included in your QBR can be aligned in three key areas: 

• Review of past and current goals
• Develop a strategy to achieve those goals 
• Putting an action plan in place

As mentioned, the QBR is the place to discuss your client’s plans for the future and how you can help with those plans. Each part of the QBR is essential in building an engaging relationship with your client while better understanding their future goals. 

Review of past and current goals

Establishing goals and measuring them is a critical part of the QBR process. Knowing how well you did in the past will give you and your client greater insight into the future. In addition, measuring goals you and your client have built together makes it easier later on in the discussion to quantify the ROI of your services. 

‍For example, some goals MSPs could track include:

• Replacing outdated workstations and servers by 10%
• Ensuring no servers are out of warranty
• Reduce software subscription lapses by 50%

‍Using the goals you and your client set out, you can share performance metrics with them to show the value of your services. This is a great way to keep meetings focused on what is important to the client and their business goals, without diving into other areas that do not match their business goals. 

‍Starting with the review will also allow you to compare them to your current or future goals, leading to future strategy and planning. If you can’t identify your successes (and failures), it will be challenging to determine the ROI your MSP is providing to the client. 

Develop and discuss strategy to achieve goals

With current goals in place, the second part of the QBR is to develop a strategy to achieve them. This is not a sales pitch. Instead, this is an opportunity to discuss where previous goals fell short, the options to improve, and what actions will be taken to ensure future goals are met. 

‍“Any time you are a trusted advisor, you want people to hear what you have to say,” said LeBlanc. “I don’t have to try and sell them. I have to tell them things that have to get done. So not having to sell to the client because all of the data is presented in such a way that they can see it – that’s a plus.”

‍By having a strategy discussion, you are focused less on sales tactics and more on solving the client’s problems and helping them achieve their goals. In addition, it allows you to handle the expertise of IT asset management and explain to the customer the value you will bring before hitting them with a sales pitch and quote. 

‍It’s also important to identify any obstacles or challenges in meeting the goals set out. 

‍For example, suppose the customer didn’t reach specific goals. In that case, the gaps need to be identified to ensure proper future planning to achieve those goals. There is always room for improvement. Clients will respect an MSP who is constantly trying to evolve and improve their strategy to meet their client’s goals. 

Putting an action plan in place

The planning part of quarterly business reviews ensures you and your client are aligned on the goals set out and the plans in place. Alignment is critical in judging the success and failure of the strategy put in place and hitting the goals and targets set out by the client. 

‍Creating an action plan will ensure both you and your client are working towards the same goals with the actions to achieve them. Leaving a QBR without putting an action plan in place can leave you open to missing critical deadlines and goals, or falling short on opportunities. 

At this stage, there will be plenty of talk around pricing and the cost of service. Still, it’s critical that MSPs remain focused on their customers’ goals and moving their business forward. So continue to speak about the value your MSP brings to their company, the ROI of hiring your business, and how you will achieve their goals and move their business forward. 

MSP software for quarterly business review

A quarterly business review can mean so much more to your business and your clients. By putting a strategic plan in place, MSPs can get in front of their clients and talk about their goals, plans for the future, and how to execute on those goals, without sounding like a sales pitch. 

‍ScalePad Lifecycle Manager is geared towards making QBR presentations a strategic conversation. By utilizing the DMI score and Insights, MSPs can identify the assets that are at risk, and address them with the client in a manner that fulfills their long-term goals. Without it sounding like a sales pitch to sell more warranties or replace assets. 

‍“I would say if you’d like to give your QBR process and the look of your presentation to your clients a shot in the arm, Lifecycle Manager is the absolute natural answer to that issue,” said Leblanc. “It presents everything in such a way that makes you that much more professional to your clients.”

‍Get the Free Edition of Lifecycle Manager today and see how your quarterly business review process can improve with an automated MSP software.