In our series about the 7 key principles successful MSPs use, this is blog number 2. After emphasizing the importance of a clear value proposition in our previous blog, we’re now diving into giving your team the right tools. Because crafting a proposition is one thing, but delivering on it is a whole other kettle of fish. Only with the right resources can your team fulfill your promise to the customer and proactively respond to their needs and questions.
How do you make sure your team delivers on your customer promises? By empowering them. Give them the autonomy and means to act independently and pivot quickly. We hear this time and time again in our conversations with MSPs that are managing to grow. How to implement this in your company? Read on to find out.
Encourage a Proactive Attitude
You want your employees to be proactive. Not to wait until the customer calls with a problem, but to raise the red flag when they see something’s about to go wrong. Or better yet, to have fixed the issue before the customer even notices.
Why is this so important? Because it offers huge advantages:
- Your customers are happier because their IT environment is stable and problems are solved quickly
- You save costs because you spend less time troubleshooting and putting out fires
- You prevent escalations and downtime through proactive monitoring and intervention
In other words: the proactive approach is a win-win for you and your customer. But how do you foster this attitude in your team?
Autonomy and Trust
It starts with the right mindset. Your employees need to feel they have the freedom and trust to make decisions independently. That they’re allowed to make mistakes and that they’re valued for their proactivity.
This might seem like a no-brainer, but in practice, you often see employees being limited in their freedom of movement, for example because there are strict protocols they have to follow or because they need approval from a manager for every decision. Understandable from a risk management perspective, but it nips proactivity in the bud.
Dare to let go and give your team space. But make sure they know what the boundaries are and when to escalate. Make clear agreements about their powers and responsibilities.
No Tools, No Glory
So autonomy and trust are important, but your team also needs the right tools. And we’re not talking about a screwdriver and pliers, but about the software tools they use to do their job.
With the right tools, they can work faster and more efficiently, collaborate more easily (both among themselves and with the customer), easily find and share information, and monitor the progress and quality of their work.
These aren’t nice-to-haves, but prerequisites for being able to act proactively. Without overview and up-to-date information, your employees are shooting in the dark. And if they have to switch tools for every little thing or manually figure things out, they’re only busy reactively solving problems instead of proactive management.
One Platform, One Truth
The solution? One integrated management platform where all information comes together and from which your employees can perform all their customer management tasks. One system that serves as a single source of truth.
With such an overarching platform, you ensure unambiguous and current data (everyone works with the same information), less dependence on individual employees (the knowledge is in the system), faster onboarding of new employees (they only have to learn one tool), and better collaboration (everyone always and everywhere has access to the same data).
You might think: “That sounds great, but such an all-encompassing system doesn’t exist, right?” Well, it does. The Ydentic platform is set up exactly like this. It offers one central environment for monitoring, managing, and optimizing the IT environments of all your customers.
Empower Your Team with Ydentic
Ydentic gives your team the tools to be proactive and serve your customers optimally. The platform offers them:
- Real-time insight into the performance and status of the IT environment
- Automated monitoring and alerts for impending issues
- Ready-made scripts for common management tasks
- Self-service options for end users, making them less dependent on the service desk
- Reports and dashboards to monitor progress and quality
And all this within one intuitive platform with a short learning curve. This way, you make your employees more productive and effective, without them being overwhelmed with tools and data.
So Ydentic not only helps you standardize your services, but also empowers your team. Your employees can focus on proactively managing and optimizing IT, instead of reactively putting out fires. And that makes your customers happy, because they experience fewer disruptions and better service.
Take the Next Step
A clear proposition and a proactive team are two important pillars of your success as an MSP. But there’s more. In a future article, we’ll dive into the third principle of the Ydentic MSP framework: challenging your customer. Is that scary? You bet, but it’s also necessary. Because by focusing on the actual need instead of the desire, you really help the customer move forward.
Curious about what Ydentic can mean for your organization? We’d be happy to tell you more in a no-strings-attached conversation. Get in touch with us, and we’ll look together at how our platform can give your company opportunities to grow.
