How Optimizing Documentation Can Boost MSP Profit Margins 2024

Published 4 days ago5 min readVendor Outreach to Clients...

Examples of organizations optimizing documentation to improve their profit margins will be the topic of today's wonderful article. Let's face it we love what we do but how many of us would not be sitting on a beach sipping calorie dense cocktails if we had the choice?

We are all in it to make a profit and there is no area of being a managed service provider that has the potential to increase profit margins more than getting your documentation squared away.

It really is the last area where we can accelerate away from our competition faster than Max Verstappen does from the rest of the pack. So I will be spending some time today listing both real word examples where documentation can substantially improve service provider profits as well as some generic points of wisdom.

Peppered in amongst it will be some fascinating factoids on general profitability for MSPs. These facts on MSP finance may well help you focus on areas where you are below the average and can change with a few small modifications.

Please feel free to strap into that favorite seat of yours and indulge in a beverage of your choice as you pick up some tips on improving profit margins through appropriate use of the Hudu documentation platform or even IT Glue.

While you are here, Take a look at some of our other Service Provider Consulting related articles below that may interest you:

Efficient Issue Resolution

Think about it, most service providers out there even today will reinvent the wheel when it comes to solving problems. I will give you a first hand example and this is by no means an isolated incident.

Part of the job we undertake at Optimized documentation is to streamline existing documentation. So there was a client of ours earlier this year that paid us to do this task with their support desk instruction guides.

They were heavily Active directory reliant as most businesses still are in one way or another. I handle this by having 3x 27 inch LCD displays in a row and then search (in this case using IT-Glue) for all documents relating to Active Directory user setup.

The main problem business have when it comes to creating client documentation is that they will do it as an afterthought, they will often mistakenly have the most experienced staff create the documentation and will create a very average how to document whenever a new client comes on board meaning in this case they had 23 AD onboarding documents that were all 90% similar.

This is incredibly inefficient. Improving efficiency in documentation improves resolution times by significant margins.

Separating Generic Technical Steps

So I found 23 different onboarding documents to do with AD which were 90% identical in what they were trying to achieve yet completely different in wording, the amount of steps as well as screen shot use.

The Wonka golden ticket of documentation and you can take this to the bank, is to separate generic AD setup steps from client specific steps.

This is not just for AD onboarding tasks, it is for any documentation of a common setup type from firewall setups to mobile devices, it does not matter, always remove the generic steps from the client specific steps.

So that is what I did in this case, I began by extracting every step from each of the 23 articles and used an excel spreadsheet to put each step into its own excel row. Once all 23 columns were completed, I would create the most beautiful well rounded step that would not look out of place in an art gallery.

I would merge 23 step 1s into 1 step 1. If say 13 of those steps included step 2 then I would break them into 2 rows. I found that there was not a single one of those documents that had the full set of my final generic steps. Some had less than half which were likely written on a Friday afternoon before a long weekend. They all said the same thing yet were radically different.

I normalized the steps and ended up with a single generic document which could be applied to all past, present and future clients. This saves so much time and builds trust in the documents that you choose to produce.

You can either copy this document to each of your clients document folders. The disadvantage with that is of course when it requires updating, while you only update it once, you still have to copy it to each of your clients documentation folders which if you have several hundred clients, takes time and introduces a high risk of a human error occuring.

What I used to do with ITGlue is have a generic instruction guide folder that I shared out of the MSPs documentation folder. This means you update it once and because in ITG you can make any document public to anyone with a link, it is available to all clients.

I would put a navigation document in each client's documentation folders that had an unchanging link back to the master documentation which could be changed in one go.

There are disadvantages to doing this of course, the main one being that IT Glue will automatically apply the clients logo to the top right of any document you share as long as it sits within their documentation folder structure.

If the document sits in the MSPs document structure then it will only ever show the MSPs logo for all clients. It's a nice feature but not worth the hassle of having to update hundreds of documents when you make a single change.

Client Specific Information Is Kept Separate

So you have this mother beautiful work of art in the form of a generic how to document for anything from setting up a database server or troubleshooting a third party vertical application and you think “Yeah that is great but all of my clients have different setups, this will not work for me”

The biggest factor that determines profitability in business is customization, unless you are making surf boards then you need to be searching for every single area of your business where you can eliminate non standard custom solutions. Sure every client is special (that is a lie) but you need to make money and every time you do something special for a client that makes their environment different you are eroding profitability.

Do not panic, the second part of this solution is the most important, always, always make your tech support guides a 2 part process that involves the generic rarely changing part of the guide and then the client specific part of the guide.

They should be set up to work together. So in the example with the AD onboarding document I created, I worked out exactly where in the generic document there would be client specific information.

Think along the lines of domain names, the way username convention is used, where the user directory is located, how printers are added and which information needs to be recorded for a particular client such as mobile phone numbers and office addresses.

Then there are third party apps that may hook in such as signature applications etc.

This is where some strategic decisions need to be made and certainly some existing clients may have setups which include things no other client will ever set, it does not matter however you should always work towards normalization of your own standards and having your clients fall in line rather than the other way around.

Always be persuading clients to fit in with your strategy and if they do not then always be on the lookout for clients that are a good fit. This means as the service provider, you have your own fortress of solitude, a place of power where if the client is not a good fit, it does not cause a level of pain that forces you to do things their way.

Segmentation Of User Guides

Regardless as to the type of user guide, it could be a client user guide or a help desk fault finding guide, make sure that you connect with bright yellow numbered balls on the generic guide where client specific information is required.

Trust me, almost nobody does this, I have never come across a service provider that creates documentation this way and there are so many benefits.

So in my example, I put numbers 1 to 30 in a ball that looked like a 2D lotto ball that was yellow with black outline and black text. I make it highly obnoxious looking, however you can create it in the style best suited to your organization but I found obnoxious works best.

You then make a client form that has identical corresponding obnoxious numbering from 1 to 30. I have a strong preference for Adobe Acrobat to create forms and that is because it's a product I get a great deal of joy using.

Some hate it and that is OK. Some of the PSA applications such as Connectwise Manage have 3rd party apps that bolt on client facing consoles and allow the creation of forms that I also find pleasing. It can sometimes be tough getting clients to spend more for this extra feature.

I then create a client specific form and this form is designed to be as client friendly as possible. Whenever a drop down or a tick box can be used, I use it. I make the forms as simple as possible for clients to fill out.

Automatic Creation Of Tickets Based On Client Form

This is where things get very exciting. How sick to death do you get when a client sends in a service ticket which has less than 10% of the information required to undertake ticket completion?

You have asked a dozen times but it does not matter. You find you end up wasting time calling the client contact and they are not there so you ask them to call back and you follow up with an email asking for the missing information required to complete the ticket before putting it on hold.

The client contact rings back or emails with a thinly veiled complaint that they do not have time for this so you call and find out they need to speak to others to get the information you need.

There can be another half dozen steps here but the end result is excess time being spent on a job that has been done a thousand times before and the effective hourly rate of your service agreement contract of course plummets.

So this is where the client facing form comes in so handy. It is a requirement to have it 100% filled out before your support desk is allowed to begin the ticket. You make the form simple for the client to fill out and once it arrives only then can your staff begin work on the ticket.

My forms have a submit button in the form so no printing or having to open their email client has to take place. All they do is hit submit and it creates a ticket with the correct subject under the correct client and you then know you have 100% of the information to complete the job.

As a side note this also improves employee morale because nobody enjoys the start stop method that disorganization brings.

Form Synchronized With Support Desk Guide

The area highlighted with the obnoxious yellow and black lotto balls have their mirrored version on the client facing form. So Point 1 on the generic user guide corresponds to the point 1 on the user form.

Once the support desk person gets the completed form, they just use the generic guide to undertake the task in conjunction with the user form that has the specific user information.

I Prefer It My Way

This is quite a regular response but I promise the way above is so much more efficient.

How many hours are you wasting with a different document for each client because they are special? Assuming the average client or support user guide takes on average 2 hours to complete and I am going to be generous and assume that it is of an acceptable standard.

Take the average of say 50 clients that use AD and need an onboarding document for this task. That is 100 hours over say a couple years. Now how often do you update those documents when something changes? If you say almost never or when things get quiet and on a completely random schedule then that would tee up with the experience I have with service providers.

A document is lucky to ever get updated over its lifetime. That means a lack of trust that your staff has relating to your technical guides. What happens then? It means they do not even bother reading them after a while and either message other more experienced staff or call them. That is now wasting 2 staff members time on something that if organized properly is not ever required.

Time Effort And No Trust

That is my summary of most instruction guides created by service providers. You need a system, it does not need to be the best system, but you need to have one.

Stop repeating the same work over and over again just to give the perception of being a busy business. I would rather have my support desk sitting around twiddling their thumbs because my systems were so good over having them running around like headless chooks all while sitting there wondering why I am not making a profit.

I guarantee that if you separate client specific information from your generic instruction guides, yes it will take a serious up front investment but you will absolutely be more successful than your competition, not just in efficiency but also staff retention as they will not be in a constant environment of blame for things taking too long.

Rapid User Onboarding

So following this nugget of gold I have imparted upon you all, you can rapidly increase your onboarding speed. You can onboard faster and with employees that are less experienced because they do not need to already know how to do the particular task in front of them.

It means you can scale in both directions both up and down with less trained staff (cheaper) This of course means more profit and we all like profits, well I certainly do that’s for sure.

Reduced Training Time

This relates to the point above. If you have onpoint, magnificent documentation then you do not actually need to do all that much training. Most support desks hire experienced staff because they know anyone with less than about 2 years experience is about as useful as pockets on a singlet.

Well if your documentation is set up as I suggest here then you can go on a hiring spree and get two for one staff. With well structured documentation, as Scarface once said, the world is yours.

I also have found you can tap into the enthusiasm of younger less experienced employees. Generally they are focussed on impressing in the position they are in and so unlike the crusty old techs (who often go on rants about how great Linux is) who are there for a paycheck. Make it easy for them to impress you and you will be rewarded.

The main downside is that they likely will not stay for long as younger technicians do need to move regularly to build up a good set of skills and experience.

Retention Of Knowledge

We have all been there, your right hand man has finally decided they are taking the extra 20K the competition is offering and you spend nights tossing and turning over how much information they are taking with them as they walk out the door.

This is where having MSP documentation within your organization setup to a standard that ensures that you capture and retain knowledge within your company has some amazing benefits. As mentioned, you no longer have to be stressed every time a long term staff member moves on and it allows you to scale downwards as well as scale up.

Conclusion

I have gone away with myself here and almost done myself a mischief in that I have only touched on a fraction of the areas of how good documentation practices help with profit margins. I hope that you can see from the small cross section of the examples I have given above, how profitable it can be to ensure that your documentation framework is the best it can be.

The aim of any service provider should be to create the least amount of documentation while ensuring its effectiveness is maintained at the highest standard. Excessive documentation is a killer as far as MSP profit margins and efficiency is concerned.

It does not necessarily mean spending up big on class leading documentation platforms but it does mean being organized and consistent with your documentation processes.

We have a number of other I.T support and consulting articles listed below that will provide you with more detailed information on a number of related topics:

https://optimizeddocs.com/blogs/consulting/consulting-index-page-01

Our team specializes in strategies for IT infrastructure organizations and we assist in improving profit margins through standardization and consistent record keeping strategies, so you can be confident that our content is tailored to your needs.

Please feel free to explore our other articles and click on any that interest you. If you have any questions or would like to learn more about how we can help you with your documentation needs, please click the "Get In Touch" button to the left and we will be happy to assist you. Thank you for choosing us as your trusted source for technology documentation.