TSP Talk Ep50. Modernising Our Approach To Servicing & Interacting With Our Clients

[00:00:00] Hello everyone, it's James Davis from the Pax8 Academy again and this time I've got

[00:00:24] Matt from Thread. How are you doing Matt? I'm great, I'm great, happy to be here. Thank you for

[00:00:30] joining me. I'm always curious though where are you located in this wide world? So I'm located

[00:00:36] outside of Philadelphia Pennsylvania about 45 minutes northeast. It's a funny story. It's

[00:00:42] town called Washington Crossing. Used to be called Taylor'sville. They felt the need to rebrand

[00:00:47] and so there is a little Washington Crossing monument and park but tourism is about exactly

[00:00:54] the same as I understand it. But old marketing and creating their own jobs again. That's awesome.

[00:01:01] Well thank you so much for joining me today. This is hopefully going to be a super interesting

[00:01:07] conversation for people because we're going to be talking about modernizing our approach

[00:01:11] to servicing and interacting with our clients. It's something that's not often spoken about

[00:01:16] but I'm seeing the need to change and this leads me into that my first question to put you on the

[00:01:22] spot is, is the old ways of how we've been servicing and interacting with our clients

[00:01:29] still the right way? Always being email and phone I assume. So in short, no or at least

[00:01:38] not alone. So I'll unpack that a little bit but really what we believe that at Thread is

[00:01:47] using all channels available to the MSP and to their customers in concert making sure that

[00:01:52] we're tagging the right person in the right channel at the right time really meeting

[00:01:58] people where they are. So that can mean a few different things but back to the original response.

[00:02:04] No, the reason I say that is because both original channels email and phone there's friction

[00:02:11] inherent in them and because of the friction and because of the nature of the channel they're either

[00:02:19] async totally like email but a poor experience or with phone once you get through to the dispatcher

[00:02:26] or the tech it's really expensive. It's a better experience but it's really expensive

[00:02:30] because you have at least one technician on the phone and at least one user on the phone

[00:02:36] for both businesses and adds up being a lot of resources tied up. So we love chat of course

[00:02:41] but I think it's really about the combination finding the right mix based on the use case of

[00:02:48] the request. It's really interesting the channels concept and what you just said there around

[00:02:54] the phones being expensive but the best experience that starts to unravel understanding

[00:03:00] what's the best channel for what sort of situation. So maybe you've mentioned chat are there any other

[00:03:06] sort of channels that we would typically use utilize to do that sort of interaction with our

[00:03:11] clients? Yeah I mean we see SMS is one of the most requested channels and I think you know

[00:03:19] WhatsApp of course everywhere outside of the US or at least Europe and on the SMS and WhatsApp

[00:03:27] what's outside I think it's really fundamentally the same challenge that you see in Microsoft teams

[00:03:32] or in Slack whereby if you're present in the tenant or the workspace what you run into is users

[00:03:40] or site contacts asking the tech directly or even higher than that service manager

[00:03:47] or the CEO of the MSP I need help or I want to get your opinion on something

[00:03:52] and it totally bypasses your queue your process whereas if you have an integration

[00:03:59] whether it be Slack teams SMS or what's that what that does is it still facilitates the instant

[00:04:06] access like on-demand type experience and priority you know importance that they want to feel

[00:04:14] white glove you know so to speak experience while still making sure that a ticket's created

[00:04:20] on the back end right away and then you're capturing all the communication and the work

[00:04:24] in the audit trail of the PSA which is of course super important. Yeah we're staying to dive into

[00:04:33] some of the mechanisms but maybe we bring it back a bit why are we needing to change from

[00:04:40] that sort of traditional email and phone support to these some more I guess omni-channel approaches

[00:04:48] with different options. Yeah I think you know certainly we're seeing a generational shift I think

[00:04:54] as millennials as Gen Z really continue to grow within the workforce they're more digital native

[00:05:02] generations right they're not analog or digital nomads as some people like to call them whereby

[00:05:09] you know they weren't born with or nearby cell phone or the internet and they've had to learn

[00:05:16] and pick up these systems and platforms yeah a little bit older whereas Gen Z and millennial

[00:05:23] you know I'm a millennial I still remember a time before the internet time before cell phones but

[00:05:28] certainly the younger folks when you ask them to pick up a call instead of going like this they go

[00:05:34] like this and I think that says everything right there right so they're looking for more of a

[00:05:41] you know best of all world scenario async when they need to be sync when they want to be

[00:05:48] and really digital led digital first as opposed to spending all that dedicated time on the phone.

[00:05:57] So with that demographic change what um what is the sort of the partner the MSP the

[00:06:05] break fix shop what are they having to do to change their mentality to actually embrace this

[00:06:10] demographic change? That's a great question and I think it is it is fundamentally a shift in mentality

[00:06:17] whereby you know ticketing systems were invented you know kind of in the days of mainframe computing

[00:06:24] whereby you had a punch guard and he punched it in and that was your ticket you're like a physical

[00:06:31] physical proof of work right and uh it's it's a legacy concept in our opinion and it

[00:06:38] it was never meant for for service which is fundamentally is the the business of MSPs,

[00:06:45] TSP's whatever you'd like to call them services in the name of the category and so I think it's a

[00:06:52] service first mindset instead of um you know a support mindset if that makes sense we had

[00:06:59] queues for a long time um and essentially it and SLAs right and in my opinion both are kind of meant

[00:07:07] to be a bit of a buffer to help you get to the bottom of what the issue is and and really

[00:07:13] buy yourself time buy some time at the cost of the experience for the end user I was like to

[00:07:20] say that users don't move in SLA time they move in and certainly experience things in

[00:07:26] chronological time and as we well know when you have a pause button those two don't connect

[00:07:32] and so I think it's a service first mindset as opposed to a support mindset.

[00:07:39] It's very interesting that that shift of that mindset shift of traditionally we've been there

[00:07:46] to fix things that are broken even that sort of customer service side I think we're evolving

[00:07:52] into more it's more enablement as we get as we get more more tech savvy people in our clients as the

[00:08:00] millennials and gents said sort of take over the business space those needs of what we're providing

[00:08:06] and what they need as a client have dramatically shifted from sort of back of house infrastructure

[00:08:13] things that are randomly breaking like you said we need time to actually investigate this and

[00:08:17] deal with it compared to probably what people are asking more questions around the application

[00:08:22] layer it's very it's very different sort of delivery isn't it? Oh yeah 100% I kind of liken it to in a way

[00:08:34] what Uber did for for for taxis and for car services whereby the the technology the the car

[00:08:43] right the limo driver I'm sorry the taxi driver and the the medallion was pretty commoditized and pretty

[00:08:51] pretty well federated without or throughout the country in the world and what Uber did was they

[00:08:57] came in and said you know the model fundamentally needs to change we're going to come in with

[00:09:06] a technology driven experience based service as opposed to standing there having to wave your hand

[00:09:14] around and I think fundamentally that's that's what we see happening in the space right is that

[00:09:20] the stack unless you're in a highly specialized vertical which if you are amazing right with

[00:09:29] very kind of specific technology needs and compliance requirements that might be different

[00:09:34] but certainly if you're going after SMB and everybody's on the Microsoft 365 and Azure stack

[00:09:41] it's relatively commoditized right and once things become commoditized you can really

[00:09:48] standardize how you service it and how you support issues but but I don't know that a lot of folks

[00:09:57] are thinking that way or see it coming

[00:09:59] and that's pretty dangerous because if it's commoditizing that means the margins are going to get squeezed

[00:10:08] if we're staying on the traditional side that there's obviously a time limit for how long that's

[00:10:13] going to be a profitable business so this change of mentality is actually not just a

[00:10:20] good thing for the clients this is longer term business transformation for us to

[00:10:26] maintain our high premium margin offerings over the long term and so what I'm what I'm sort of

[00:10:33] curious about as we talk about this is maybe maybe dive into some practicality and you've

[00:10:39] mentioned chat how what do you see around sort of the globe for adoption of chat in say the

[00:10:47] traditional MSP space sorry I think you froze there I lost the question

[00:10:56] what do you see around the globe for adoption of chat in traditional MSPs

[00:11:03] yeah I think really and we've thought about this quite a lot because obviously it involves who we

[00:11:11] work with heavily but I think what we've seen more broadly as well is that when you look at

[00:11:16] the psychographics of the of the firm and the team in place leadership team and the service

[00:11:23] leadership side of the organization really those who fundamentally and deeply believe

[00:11:30] and the importance and the value of delivering a differentiated experience and again a service

[00:11:37] first experience they'll lean in very heavily because they believe that you know even if

[00:11:44] technology is not there yet or or maybe not as many features as they might like to see

[00:11:51] they believe that it's the future right they believe that chat's the future and they believe

[00:11:55] that certainly meeting again meeting your customers or your clients where they work

[00:12:01] in workflow you know whether that's again phone email chat sms what's that so on and so forth

[00:12:09] meeting them where they work it's again a shift in mindset it's taking the onus off them

[00:12:16] off the user to you know pick up the phone or to email and again kind of that friction

[00:12:25] concept from earlier and really saying we'll meet you where you are when either you need us

[00:12:31] or when we have something to engage you with

[00:12:37] to me chat it's very essence apart from the the difference in the channel it's very similar

[00:12:46] to the phone isn't it really like you're still a lot of the time unless you're doing it as

[00:12:53] synchronously your um you've got someone dedicated to responding initially to triage it and

[00:12:59] push it off even without having proper automation and workflow so I've never quite understood why a

[00:13:06] lot of partners struggle with putting that channel in when they they already dedicate everyone to the

[00:13:12] phones it's it's sort of an odd odd reason and roadblock to get in the way but but you're

[00:13:19] mentioning that putting it inside the workflow of the clients I think that's resonating with me a

[00:13:25] lot around well we need to make it work for them it's about our clients and I know we've got to

[00:13:33] structure our operations to be able to deliver it on margins but often when we structure it for the

[00:13:39] clients there's that less friction it actually reduces a lot of our work effort um so I'm

[00:13:45] curious as you as you're sort of talking about that what's some what's some practical

[00:13:50] sort of operational level high level processes to think about as you're rolling out sort of chat

[00:13:56] and driving adoption inside and inside your company yeah yeah definitely and I think one major

[00:14:03] concept that that we really expound on recommend and it's something that you mentioned earlier

[00:14:09] is enablement right to the extent that you're able to provide um in app or you know with

[00:14:17] the basic workflow um or have it readily available materials that helps the the gen Z user the millennial

[00:14:25] user who want to self serve anyway to an extent that helps them understand what it is that they

[00:14:31] need to do in order to get back to work or to get what they need done done I think that's

[00:14:38] really important and it's a very low cost high experience win right out the gates

[00:14:45] and I think related to that is um have a really defined and definite kind of point of view

[00:14:53] on the nature of their quests that that you're handling and you and your kind of service catalog

[00:14:58] and understand what the the happy path the golden path experience for that type of request is

[00:15:05] and then really make sure to train or or make it easy for for users to understand

[00:15:12] when I have a new user onboarding I go here when I have a when I have to ask for my password reset

[00:15:18] I go here this is what I can expect in response if I have to do a form of 2fa to prove I am who I

[00:15:25] really am I have a video showing me how to do it um type type deal really it doesn't cost very

[00:15:32] much to put put yourself in the the customer's shoes and the end user shoes and understand

[00:15:40] hey and certainly if you're working with a very similar profile of company

[00:15:46] hey you know what are we seeing most from this type of company and if I'm in their seat where would

[00:15:52] I look where would I go what would I need in order to handle it very efficiently and effectively

[00:15:58] and I think right out the gates those those are two kind of easy wins that

[00:16:02] that generally we see a lot of value from right away it's really really interesting

[00:16:08] that sort of what you're talking about high value and it's enabling the clients and it's

[00:16:14] going to reduce our margin it's going to reduce the impact on margin and deliver a better client

[00:16:19] experience I see a lot of traditional partners resist looking at self-service you know I'm curious

[00:16:27] I'm curious from your perspective of why why do you think that is and what's getting in the way

[00:16:32] with their mindsets yeah I think I think there's a couple couple factors at play

[00:16:41] one is definitely if it ain't broke don't fix it type deal right if you have your your hands

[00:16:48] around and control around the phone channel and the email channel even even a customer

[00:16:55] portal channel as a channel introducing a change definitely can be can be scary and and

[00:17:06] manage poorly it can result in issues we've definitely seen that certainly in my former life

[00:17:13] as an MSP as well for 10 years but I'm a big believer in that you know change is inevitable

[00:17:24] and you want to be in front of any you know enduring patterns or movements that you see in the space

[00:17:35] when speaking with your customers you want to be at the forefront of it because if and when

[00:17:41] they're asking you for it it may already be an RFP out that's you know sourcing bids

[00:17:48] certainly if you're seeing it you know one two three customers and as you talk to the peers

[00:17:55] in your peer groups I know everybody's looking to get an edge and you know certainly service

[00:18:02] gross margin and tools for all this is an opportunity to consolidate and elevate your

[00:18:09] your gross margins so I would encourage you know I would encourage very strategic

[00:18:16] bets in that regard certainly talk to your network but I'm always a big believer in being at the forefront

[00:18:25] I think there's a danger here we've not embracing self-service I think we're still

[00:18:31] trapped in that mentality of the phones need to be ringing or we're not providing our value

[00:18:37] because a lot of us haven't even really achieved the true sort of ideal of what an MSP was we've

[00:18:44] only really fixed priced break fix and IT infrastructure management and what's probably

[00:18:53] already going on that a lot of people aren't realizing is a lot of the millennials and genz

[00:18:57] are just going onto YouTube and finding the answers to their issues or they're using something

[00:19:02] like co-pilot or chat gpt to fix their own problems so if we're not providing any kind of value

[00:19:09] for even at that level um that we could be through self-service or something that

[00:19:15] we're just going to be seen as a roadblock and a bit of a dinosaur and why are we paying

[00:19:18] $120 a seat for these guys to be around when there isn't that sort of either high-level

[00:19:26] advice or that end user enablement side we're going to see a lot of client churn

[00:19:34] and I think to keep going along these lines that this chat experience

[00:19:41] when I was I'll go on a bit of a diatribe on a log from my perspective like even me as a millennial

[00:19:49] I never pick up the phone for anything I resent having to call somebody and I won't use their

[00:19:53] business a lot of the time unless it's really specialized and that's all they can do so even

[00:19:59] that you know chat on your website or um the chat for your support and enablement that's going to

[00:20:06] make me question your business but from there that sort of experience what you're talking

[00:20:11] about I'm really curious to explore your perspective on the changing work environment

[00:20:16] you know majority of us have grown up in the office things have changed since COVID where

[00:20:22] it's hybrid it's work from anywhere it's work from home how is that affecting this sort of

[00:20:28] servicing and interact interactivity with clients yeah yeah definitely and I think

[00:20:36] one consideration you certainly nailed right on the head which is if you're if you're working

[00:20:42] with customers who don't physically need to be in the office and you're not sending you know

[00:20:48] you're not dispatching texts or have dedicated coverage hours with that company really they're

[00:20:54] only going to see your branding when something's going wrong and think of you when something's

[00:20:59] going wrong and that's just not a great way to start off um start off a relationship or really

[00:21:07] keep the C sat levels high keep the engagement high uh if you're if you're like the plumber

[00:21:13] and the toilet's broken and I need you immediately but I want to see you again type situation as

[00:21:19] opposed to you know we're we're big believers in that level of integration that level of connectivity

[00:21:26] always on um you know low latency type uh to use a lot of technical terms low low latency type service

[00:21:36] you feel you feel more integrated into the business and you feel like more um more of a

[00:21:42] valued partner a trusted partner as opposed to again just the guy I call when uh when I need something

[00:21:51] and something major is happening and I think the more proactive engagement the more you can educate

[00:21:59] their team on opportunities to be more efficient to be more effective to unlock arbitrage in

[00:22:08] their business by using things like AI and um you know latest and greatest automation technologies

[00:22:15] that they may not have thought of otherwise uh the more deeper the deeper and the more foundational

[00:22:22] the relationship is and the more valuable it ultimately becomes and I think you know I

[00:22:28] think that's really what certainly again nodding back to the commoditization side of things

[00:22:35] that's the only way to really provide enduring and lasting value certainly now is to have those

[00:22:43] strategic conversations uh security is one thing but I think automation and enabling them to do

[00:22:52] more with the same is certainly another path to explore. I'm just as I'm taking all this in

[00:23:03] today what probably stands out to me the most is the need to understand your clients and where

[00:23:09] they're at going back to where you sort of started this conversation at and that's the basis of

[00:23:16] creating the workflows and the value for that offering and engagement isn't it? It's the

[00:23:24] what might work for say a hospitality industry is going to be different to a professional

[00:23:28] service to a mining company without understanding their workflows and how they operate if we don't

[00:23:34] properly integrate we are just going to be treated like a tradesman like you described so

[00:23:41] one thing that came to my mind as you were saying that sort of you know work from anywhere

[00:23:46] type of mentality that we're not typically working nine till five anymore so that's where

[00:23:51] self-service comes into play as well for people outside of ours. I know from my

[00:23:56] perspective of getting support let's use the banks as an example sitting on hold is always a waste of

[00:24:02] time but the experiences I've had with professional services firm so let me pick a time to schedule

[00:24:10] a time to have a virtual call it's perfect it takes the pressure off them providing it as

[00:24:18] well because I've decided when I want to do it and that might be three weeks ahead in time

[00:24:23] so I think that mentality shift is understanding and breaking down that work so I'm curious to

[00:24:29] hear your sort of experience and your perspective on this is like what sort of things should we be

[00:24:35] looking for to make these decisions on what channels and what sort of workflow and what

[00:24:39] sort of systems that we should be using to provide that enablement to our clients.

[00:24:46] Yeah definitely and I think it was really appreciate that question I think there was a

[00:24:54] I think it was Steve Jobs I saw a recording recently of him on stage talking about I think

[00:25:01] that they had spent a few billion dollars and weren't quite capturing all of the value that

[00:25:09] they could from things like the iPhone and the Mac and essentially but things were on the

[00:25:16] upswing and his point was start from the experience forward don't start from the tech back and that's

[00:25:28] what I mean by kind of considering the the golden path the happy path the magical experience

[00:25:34] that you want the user and your customers to have by looking again walking a mile in their shoes

[00:25:43] understanding that it's inconvenient for them typically when you know either they have an issue

[00:25:52] or they're they're issuing a request I think how can I make this as seamless for them as possible

[00:25:59] understanding what I have at my disposal and work from there and I think oftentimes what

[00:26:06] you'll find is there are very low friction low integration ways to to elevate that very very easily

[00:26:16] which for instance if if you give them a time's this link to put on their internet then they can

[00:26:24] do exactly what what you just mentioned which is I don't I don't want to have to pick up the

[00:26:29] phone and call and wait and wait and wait in order to get something it's much more convenient

[00:26:35] for me to click a link and pick a time that's convenient for me and be able to reschedule it

[00:26:41] if I need to if something comes up and so I think starting from that that frictionless that seamless

[00:26:49] that convenient user convenience point of view goes a long way

[00:26:59] we've been covering a lot of benefits of sort of the more modern interactivity points

[00:27:04] so I keep focusing on chat because I think a lot of people have tried like client portals

[00:27:10] and they haven't they haven't to be fair haven't driven adoption and implemented

[00:27:17] properly and it's a good example of what you spoke about before around it's not

[00:27:23] good enough to just roll out a tool you need to engage with your clients educate them

[00:27:28] and give them videos keep driving that enablement piece to you know leverage your services and get

[00:27:34] the best out of it but from a chat perspective what sort of technology is there these days like I'm

[00:27:42] imagining AI will just automatically magically do everything for us but what what where's sort of

[00:27:49] chat up to for this sort of TSP space at the moment in terms of the functionality and capability

[00:27:55] of the back of it yeah yeah definitely so circling back to an earlier concept phone

[00:28:05] in addition to being expensive phones are not well integrated necessarily we can capture transcripts

[00:28:11] maybe write it to the ticket maybe not depending on on what you're using but with chat

[00:28:17] it's text-based it's integrated and it's ordered in time and what that enables you to do

[00:28:23] really is take a look again at the experience what the progression of asks and baseline information

[00:28:30] that you might need in order to deliver the service requested and say hey how can I capture this

[00:28:36] you know maybe in a not so scalable way now but that will scale in the future with with AI and

[00:28:41] with with automations or hey can I trigger a workflow downstream based on the status change

[00:28:49] and then you know print the results of that script running right to the user in in the transcript

[00:28:58] and really cut out the the manual intervention for something simple and so I think you know

[00:29:03] it's certainly in 2024 we'll start to see really really exciting advancements in

[00:29:11] the level of integration and of course we're seeing a lot of really exciting AI driven use cases as well

[00:29:19] it's that's very exciting it goes back to self-service again doesn't it being able to

[00:29:25] produce the right form to fill out the right information then to trigger the right things

[00:29:29] to happen behind the scenes like I'm imagining potentially a HR person being able to go I've

[00:29:34] got a new user requests and then it walking through of all the requirements and automatically

[00:29:40] does it for them there's a lot of opportunities that are opening up from that and that

[00:29:46] traditional mindset we wouldn't do that kind of thing because our value is on actually doing the work

[00:29:52] but for a HR person maybe they're doing it at 10 p.m. at night because they've just realized

[00:29:58] the person starting tomorrow because it was a rushed job so it starts to reduce that sort of friction

[00:30:03] again like what you've been describing this whole time and as you're talking about that sort of

[00:30:10] emotion through utilizing chat what sort of sprung to my mind is the opportunity to leverage

[00:30:17] more offshore resources to deliver that experience through chat I know a lot of people are afraid

[00:30:23] of putting offshore resources on the phone but written language is different to verbal language

[00:30:30] and it's a lot more process driven through chat there any other sort of examples have you

[00:30:35] seen people leverage chat with the offshore resources to success or yeah yeah chat you know

[00:30:43] written mediums are the great kind of equalizer in that perspective if you're looking at industry

[00:30:49] leading products they'll have pre-canned standard note like functionality built in

[00:30:54] in the voice of your MSP of your provider so that you know the level of response

[00:31:02] will meet your requirements every time and then of course you have things like

[00:31:06] Grammarly or like again leading leading platforms in the space will leverage AI to help you

[00:31:14] spell check make sure that the grammar makes sense and provide great kind of proactive

[00:31:20] suggestions there so that it doesn't feel like the experience has suffered simply because

[00:31:25] it's after hours it looks and feels the same no matter where the sun is

[00:31:33] I think a lot of owners would love that and a lot of techs would love getting that

[00:31:40] the admin burden of writing out all the notes fully all the time would love it as well I know

[00:31:46] I was just speaking to a owner of a large MSP down in this part of the world and they had to

[00:31:51] that to let someone go because they kept writing in text SMS language inside normal ticket notes

[00:31:59] and they just couldn't break it but that's sort of that's sort of that challenge again with the

[00:32:03] demographics as they change so I see this as a sort of the start of something very new

[00:32:11] at this point isn't it yeah yeah 100% and I think it gives it's really exciting opportunity

[00:32:19] because a lot of the very essential but very time intensive manual admin heavy tasks and

[00:32:30] you know long notes that you'd write after delivering the service you have to remember

[00:32:36] I did this then I did this then and build your time best case scenario but of course everybody's

[00:32:42] busy and might forget detail or you might you know forget to put the time in altogether

[00:32:51] with the advancements of technology it's all about empowering the technician or the dispatcher

[00:32:58] to focus solely on the end user and what their needs are and then all of the all of the admin

[00:33:04] stuff kind of happens alongside them we're behind the scenes thereby empowering them to

[00:33:10] deliver a better experience and do so more more effectively more efficiently

[00:33:17] we've been speaking about a lot of the positives and why we think this is changing and what we're

[00:33:22] seeing what are one of the challenges people are going to have we've chat and why are some

[00:33:28] of the reasons why you wouldn't sort of roll out this more modern approach

[00:33:32] yeah I think starting from the customer

[00:33:37] there are some businesses where it doesn't necessarily make a ton of sense from what we've seen

[00:33:42] could be retail like restaurants not a lot of computers a lot of different people on shift

[00:33:50] less more of a transactional type relationship less of a you know professional service type

[00:33:55] relationship or experiential relationship anytime that you you you get into that scenario

[00:34:01] or you get into a scenario where you know maybe it's a multi-office small regional

[00:34:08] chiropractic practice against similar concepts people aren't sitting in front of computers all day

[00:34:15] that might be a scenario where hey email is fine phone's fine I only need my provider

[00:34:21] a couple times a year and that's okay so that that's one consideration the other would be

[00:34:31] definitely run into situations where folks they don't like change they don't want to

[00:34:37] they've been handling issues the same way and so to the extent that you can come in and meet

[00:34:44] technicians where where they work we've gotten a lot of value out of that and a lot of

[00:34:51] adoption a lot of buy-in because we're not saying hey all of a sudden you have this new

[00:34:56] interface where you're only working out of chat you might have a chat shift similar to your point

[00:35:03] from earlier to being on the phones but then after that you'll still get updates in wherever you are

[00:35:11] Slack teams or your PSA but it enables you to to kind of experience the best of all worlds

[00:35:19] it's really interesting I take that point around the type of client again assessing their needs

[00:35:28] is super critical to this point now I think I would say a lot of us make too many assumptions

[00:35:35] about our clients from purchasing decisions the way they operate we need to go back and

[00:35:42] reassess what and understand their business is a lot better and this is a good catalyst

[00:35:48] for that from from our business perspective as well how do they operate how do they need to be

[00:35:54] serviced all of that kind of stuff it all feeds into this sort of elevating ourselves up to that

[00:35:58] technology advisor and like you said there's nothing wrong with the transactional approach

[00:36:03] there's still very much need for that sort of break fix type of support however you package

[00:36:09] that up but that's a transactional relationship compared to what we're talking about here

[00:36:14] which is more that ongoing enablement and governance and advisory type engagement which is

[00:36:20] which is very different so again it comes down to your business model and your clients business

[00:36:25] models I've been learning a bunch and are taking on a lot from today and I could talk about this

[00:36:33] for hours and hours and hours we've covered a lot of concepts what do you want people to

[00:36:38] really take away from this session and what's the next what's the clear next action point for them to

[00:36:45] go and do if they've heard us and go yeah I do need to modernize my approach yeah yeah definitely so

[00:36:53] I think you know we covered a couple a couple bigger concepts and I'll stick to that before

[00:36:59] we go to the next practical step but again I think as we look at technology as we look at

[00:37:10] business technology and we look at the commoditization side of things we look at

[00:37:18] the kind of tool sprawl and the ever ever implementation problem that we all know well

[00:37:26] uh is certainly prominent in the space I would I would definitely

[00:37:32] harken back to my advice from earlier which is really think deeply about the experience

[00:37:38] that that you are delivering to your users to your customers and and think about differentiation

[00:37:44] through experience and what I mean by that is if the tech is commoditized um and you're

[00:37:51] going to market and saying we have the best tech stack well you don't because virtually every every

[00:37:58] msp in your region will have a very similar stack but if you're marketing through highly

[00:38:06] personalized experiences you send a gift that harkens back to a conversation that you had

[00:38:12] with a user or with your primary contact a year ago um and they they get it they take

[00:38:19] a picture of it they post it on social media that goes a lot a lot further and really helps you

[00:38:25] stand apart from other people who are only pointing to the tech so I really view it as a strong

[00:38:32] differentiation opportunity a strong marketing opportunity because we know we know well that

[00:38:36] providers um do struggle with with marketing quite a lot as well so further to that point

[00:38:46] the first the best first step is to talk to your customers um set up time if you have a qbr

[00:38:52] qbr is a great forum for it um but they're never going to or at least they shouldn't probably not

[00:38:57] a good customer if they do have an issue with uh you reaching out and saying hey how can I serve

[00:39:02] you better where's your business moving um what do your teams need or want or are asking for

[00:39:10] because I want to make sure that we are delivering the best experience that we can for you

[00:39:16] very positive conversation you'll get a lot of data out of it maybe what you're doing well now

[00:39:21] not doing well now and any opportunities for for improvement and that might be you know

[00:39:28] that might be more scheduled calls it might be a scheduling option or it might be additional

[00:39:33] channels or support there's some there's some awesome advice and insights throughout the session

[00:39:40] I think my my big takeaway um from this is and insight would be maybe your clients that you've

[00:39:50] got now are used to the way that you deliver and maybe the majority of them don't want you to

[00:39:56] change um and that might be okay but the threat to you is the new clients that you are going to lose

[00:40:04] out on um from not looking at this kind of thing um so don't just make all your decisions based on

[00:40:11] where you are currently and this is a this is very much a longer term business and digital

[00:40:16] transformation journey um and just be more holistic in it will let you better results over

[00:40:23] the long term um so this is an awesome session my brain is in a flurry of ideas and excitement

[00:40:32] hopefully the listeners and the viewers have gotten some nuggets out of out of your wisdom today

[00:40:38] Matt so thank you so much for joining me um and no doubt I'll have you on again in the future

[00:40:45] yeah thanks again for having me and would love to come back on awesome thanks mate

[00:40:53] um