Onsite visits by MSPs, if onsite visits are necessary anymore and if so the frequency of site visits will be the fascinating and worthwhile topic of today's article.
Remote management tools apart from perhaps RDP did not exist the way they do today. The numbers have now reversed and it would be safe to say that 90% of all work carried out by an MSP is undertaken remotely.
Below, I am going to discuss the primary reasons why MSPs still conduct onsite visits and if these reasons are worth the significantly higher cost involved.
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The biggest misconception is that MSPs still conduct onsite visits because there are certain types of technical tasks that require a technical resource to actually be onsite in front of the equipment and while that can be true, in cases such as if a network switch fails and nobody is able to access it remotely then an onsite visit will be required.
These incidents though are becoming quite rare and so the reason onsite visits by MSPs are still conducted is more about the client perception and ensuring that they feel they are getting value for money. It also allows the MSP to stay informed on any issues that may occur that would not be picked via remote support methods.
Remote MSP Support Only
The advent of MSPs that provide remote only support has increased from almost zero in the early 2000s to now being the most significant type of MSP in the market today.
The most common approach to the need for providing onsite assistance is to have access to a number of local IT Techs who can attend the site if required.
Local Versus Multi State Versus Global
The truth is that a multi state or global setup for an MSP client is not ideal for the majority of business. While I understand that large MSPs offering services to multiple states or even globally have no choice but to operate in this fashion and as a result large MSP clients do not really have much of a choice.
Almost all of their staff are going to be local and understand the geographical layout. They tend to be more focused on reputation because gaining a poor reputation in that one area is going to have a far more significant impact than an MSP that has a presence in say 30 states. They can take a hit in one area and it is not going to make much of a difference.
When I ran my own MSP, there were one or two guys who were technically quite gifted and head and shoulders above everyone else in that area but you had to hide them away in a cupboard if a client was likely to visit and you certainly never contemplated sending them out onsite at a clients office.
The lack of communication within your own MSP often starts like a snowball and I have seen this first hand. Onsite visits decline to a point they are optional in which case many eliminate them altogether due to the cost and you think it stops there but it actually gets worse.
An analogy is much like doing no exercise, the less you do, the less you want to do until one day you wake up and find you no longer leave your chair because even slight movement causes fatigue.
Once onsite visits stop, you think staff will still use the phone to make calls but it does not work that way. Soon phone calls stop and every single piece of communication is being conducted through a ticket queue. Sure it is efficient and it could be argued that having all communication recorded in a service ticket is a good thing however it does not end there.
It gets to a point where there is so little communication going on between the service provider and the client and between the MSP staff to each other that the client begins to wonder what it is we are doing for that agreement fee they pay at the start of every month.
MSP Client Perception
Client perception is everything in this game. You may be doing a mother beautiful job and preventing significant amounts of client downtime that are a direct result of the systems and processes you have put in place.
My solution was to always bill time and materials work for a minimum of one hour regardless of how long the work actually took. The result of this was that invoice complaints dropped significantly. This is because of the perception that you took hardly any time so why should you bill me for it?
An analogy is that of a junior plumber and an experienced plumber working on an identical job. The junior plumber spends 4 hours trying to fix the problem, having to contact more senior plumbers for advice before finally fixing it by replacing the hot water system.
The senior plumber comes in and kicks the hot water system in a certain spot and fixes the problem within minutes of arriving. The senior plumber fixed the problem fast because he knew where to kick the water system to get it working again and saved the homeowner 4 hours of his time plus the cost of the hot water system. The outcome is far more favorable to the homeowner.
What do you think the homeowners reaction would be if the senior plumber attempted to charge $800 which is exactly half what the junior plumber cost? He would hit the roof and there would be a refusal to pay regardless of the outcome.
Even if the plumber tried charging for an hour's work it would leave the homeowner feeling ripped off and yet the outcome was far more favorable.
It is exactly the same as an MSP. The client needs to feel as if they are getting value for money and onsite visits rightly or wrongly are one of the indicators the client uses to determine if they are getting that value for money.
Conclusion
Conducting onsite visits should only partly be about the actual work that needs to be undertaken. MSPs should use it as a tool to increase visibility with the client and get a feel for the current sentiment held for your organization.
My view is still that MSPs that are local to the client they are supporting are always going to be a better choice than a multinational organization that has no physical presence in your state. The onsite support will always be of a higher order and they will be more likely concerned about their local reputation than an out of state organization.
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