Bobby Jacobs of Thread

[00:00:02] Hello! Ladies and gentlemen! You thought we were like, you know, forgot about you, we stopped doing these for a couple weeks. No, we were on airplanes. Remember all those parties you were talking about and conferences? Yeah, those things happen. We'll talk about them for a few minutes now while we're at the beginning of this, but let me tell you, it is a lot of time in the air and a lot of beverages on the ground and some artists in between. And when you do all that, you get what happened to us over the last six weeks of the year.

[00:00:30] So, hopefully, if you're watching this, listening to it, whatever, you ran into us in person because I feel like we were everywhere. But just in case you forgot where we were, MSPinitiative.com. By the way, this session is being recorded like every other session we've ever done. You'll find that on the sessions tab of MSPinitiative.com, on YouTube, in the podcatcher of your choosing. It's all out there. Like, download, subscribe, share, forward. It's all there. You know, we love to do these sessions.

[00:00:57] They give us some good banter time when we're not at the hotel lobby bar like everybody else.

[00:01:01] So, next year, we'll be doing MSP Community Minds. It's going to be in the central part of the U.S. So, it's Chicago or Dallas. Stay tuned. We really love the MSP Community Minds.

[00:01:11] And if you missed us, we did all of these block parties. We started off with Enable in Dallas earlier in the year.

[00:01:18] We then went to DattoCon in Denver. We went to Dublin with DattoCon. We went to Pax8 in Denver, Dublin for DattoCon. Then we went to Berlin with Pax8 again.

[00:01:30] Then we went to Orlando with DattoCon, IT Nation for Orlando, IT Nation for Sydney, and closed out the year with DattoCon in Sydney. Like, we were everywhere.

[00:01:40] And by the way, if you want to see all of the photos from all the parties, hit us up on Facebook, right? If you go to Facebook.com slash, I think it's, let's see.

[00:01:53] I'm just going to Google, or in this case, Bing. There you go. Facebook.com slash MSP Initiative.

[00:01:59] We put up albums with all of the parties. And by the way, they go back to 2020, right? So, check this out. You will see on their photos, we have all the albums posted for all the parties.

[00:02:13] Go back, relive them. A lot of good stuff there. A lot of good moments there. I love this shot of Flowrider. That's pretty cool.

[00:02:21] As I, you know, literally pulled it up in a browser. But anyway, you'll see it all there. Facebook.com slash MSP Initiative. Check out all of the albums.

[00:02:29] So, like, now we're in, like, get some sleep mode. Figure out what next year's actual, like, event calendar looks like, which I'm told is now closer to 500 events than 300. I don't know how.

[00:02:41] But, you know, that's what they tell me. And then we figure out what we're doing for next year. So, stay tuned. There's, you know, as much stuff going on next year, if not more than there was this year.

[00:02:50] I don't know how many more parties we can pump out. They're pretty cool, but they take a lot of effort.

[00:02:56] But for everybody that definitely joined us, thank you. I hope you had a great time.

[00:03:01] Like, it's a labor of love. And for anyone that ever tells you that we're in some back room, like a casino, counting cash with the counter machine, it's not true.

[00:03:09] It's a lot, like, thank you, by the way. This is for all of you.

[00:03:14] All the co-sponsoring vendors that put a little bit of money into the pot.

[00:03:17] It is not possible without you.

[00:03:19] For every MSP that walked in and drank a beer, or a soda, for that matter, that was paid for by somebody else.

[00:03:26] We didn't ask you to take your credit card out and swipe, right? We took care of you.

[00:03:31] Wanted to make sure you had a great time.

[00:03:32] I would argue a premium experience, whether it was, you know, the Live Nightclub party in Miami on South Beach at Fountain Blue was crazy.

[00:03:42] Like, I had-

[00:03:42] Yeah, we sponsored that one, George. It was freaking awesome, man.

[00:03:46] I had no clue. I had Kaseya and Datto staff coming up to me, like people I've never met before.

[00:03:51] And they're like, hey, man, we really appreciate you for doing that.

[00:03:54] I'm like, yeah, no, no problem. They're like, no, no, no, you don't understand.

[00:03:56] What am I missing? They're like, you can't get into that place.

[00:04:00] I'm like, huh? They're like, on a regular night, like we live here, you can't get in.

[00:04:05] It's like the place. I'm like, hmm, who would have thought?

[00:04:10] So you're welcome. That's awesome. And like, by the way, that place is like a huge robot.

[00:04:14] I had no clue, like the whole ceiling moves and stuff.

[00:04:17] So that was really cool.

[00:04:20] And then obviously, you know, I don't know how we keep-

[00:04:23] I don't know if we're outdoing ourselves or maybe we just negotiate, you know, very well.

[00:04:28] But I think Flowrider may have blown the freaking ceiling off of that block party in Orlando.

[00:04:34] Yeah. What you guys are doing from a, you know, community and party perspective, it's freaking awesome.

[00:04:42] I feel like people talk about the events, the MSP block party stuff, like as much as the premier actual conference things.

[00:04:52] It's awesome.

[00:04:52] Hey, we didn't even introduce them yet, but Bobby, they're hearing you, right? Right from your mouth.

[00:04:57] I didn't say that. You said it, right?

[00:05:01] So Bobby Jacobs, by the way, if you didn't catch him before, it was a little while ago.

[00:05:05] He's been on the podcast, but welcome back, by the way.

[00:05:08] Yeah. Great to be here. Sorry for jumping the gun. It's just so much exciting stuff you got going on.

[00:05:11] No, no, no. I appreciate it.

[00:05:12] Like, so bottom line is guys, if you're listening to this, like, this is all for you.

[00:05:17] And I know the word community, I think gets, I don't know, abused at times.

[00:05:22] It is a community. It's actually a lot of communities, right?

[00:05:25] It's like a, it's like a city that has a bunch of neighborhoods, right?

[00:05:29] So I think people remember good things, good experiences, good memories.

[00:05:34] And they remember, I don't know, a pamphlet at a show floor booth, right?

[00:05:38] Like that's just me.

[00:05:40] So if you guys get to go home, I had a couple of people reach out.

[00:05:44] People like I had met, I love meeting people on the ground.

[00:05:46] It's the best.

[00:05:48] They were like, Hey, you know, my kid will, will hate me if I don't get a photo with Flowrider.

[00:05:53] And I'm like, sure, sure. We'll, we'll figure it out.

[00:05:54] We'll get you up there.

[00:05:55] And Jen, who's in the background here, she, she got one of Flowrider sneakers on her,

[00:06:01] on her, you know, signs, you know, that he threw off the stage,

[00:06:04] like literally on the shelf.

[00:06:06] It's like her prize possession of the year.

[00:06:08] So, um, yeah, I'm not a big, like, let's get business done on the golf course

[00:06:14] and in the back rooms type guy, but there's a lot to be said for relationships

[00:06:18] and in-person and understanding the people you're partnering with and working with

[00:06:22] and having the hand to shake.

[00:06:24] And, um, yeah, I mean, I, I think that's one of the really valuable things

[00:06:27] that you guys provide.

[00:06:29] I mean, and to me, right.

[00:06:31] And like, Hey, Bobby, we've both done a ton of events in our time, right?

[00:06:34] Like we've been around for a while.

[00:06:35] Me and you found the same barber and everything.

[00:06:38] That's right.

[00:06:40] You know what?

[00:06:41] Like I've done more, you know, relationship building on, you know, in the middle of the

[00:06:48] hallway, on the curb, at the bar, at the dinner, at the party, at the whatever, right?

[00:06:54] Like that to me seems to build the most genuine things that anything else.

[00:07:01] So if we can create more, I hate, I hate to even say this, but I'm going to go there.

[00:07:06] You know, John Taffer, if you're a bar rescue watcher, it's the science of building spaces,

[00:07:13] right?

[00:07:13] It's the science of the butt funnel, right?

[00:07:15] Where you push people together.

[00:07:17] And like, by the way, Google it, butt funnel.

[00:07:19] It's a thing.

[00:07:20] It's not a bad thing.

[00:07:21] It's like, you know, how do you create spaces so that people are closer together than further?

[00:07:27] And to that end, thank you to the team here at MSB Initiative.

[00:07:31] And there's a lot of volunteers in that team, by the way.

[00:07:34] They're not just people that are actually behind the scenes here formally.

[00:07:37] You know, a lot of volunteers help us put these things on.

[00:07:40] And we couldn't do it without everybody's help.

[00:07:43] It is definitely a collaborative effort.

[00:07:45] And to that end, the location science, the party science, the venue shopping, all these

[00:07:54] like really things, like a lot of minutia tasks that go behind the scenes to make all this

[00:07:58] work.

[00:07:59] There is a little bit of a science, Bobby, into making sure that you don't over-undersize

[00:08:04] an event.

[00:08:05] Absolutely.

[00:08:05] Yeah.

[00:08:06] So nobody wants to go into a place where they're like, there's a lot of room here.

[00:08:10] And there's only five people.

[00:08:11] Feels bad.

[00:08:12] That doesn't, am I in the right place?

[00:08:14] Should I go somewhere else?

[00:08:15] Nobody likes that vibe.

[00:08:16] So anyway, check out like for everybody that came out to, what was the last six weeks?

[00:08:22] Pax 8 Beyond Berlin, DattoCon Miami, IT Nation Orlando, DattoCon Sydney.

[00:08:26] Those were like the big four at the end.

[00:08:28] Check out the photos.

[00:08:30] Lots of good times.

[00:08:31] Lots of good smiles.

[00:08:32] I think you guys might find yourselves, tags yourselves, by the way.

[00:08:35] Download them, you know, all the good stuff there.

[00:08:38] All right.

[00:08:38] So now all of the reminiscing, I'm sure we'll do a little bit more of that, but all of the

[00:08:42] formal reminiscing is out off the way.

[00:08:44] Here we go.

[00:08:45] Bobby Jacobs, who, if you haven't, you know, if you haven't run into Bobby, he's usually

[00:08:50] wearing a pirate thing these days, but he's been around before, even before the pirate

[00:08:53] time, believe it or not.

[00:08:54] We'll talk about that.

[00:08:55] From Thread, welcome back.

[00:08:59] Thanks, George.

[00:09:00] Good to be here.

[00:09:01] Yeah.

[00:09:01] Yeah.

[00:09:01] No, thanks for coming back, man.

[00:09:03] I'm still in.

[00:09:03] I feel like I still have an outlet plugged into the back of me.

[00:09:06] I'm still trying to recharge from all of the airplane time.

[00:09:09] But what was your, yeah, did you have a favorite moment or two from like the back end here?

[00:09:14] I mean, yeah, you were there.

[00:09:16] I knew, you know.

[00:09:17] Yeah.

[00:09:17] Yeah.

[00:09:18] I'm sure you got a lot of photos with that pirate ghetto.

[00:09:20] I think, uh, I think DattoCon and IT Nation were awesome this year.

[00:09:25] Um, you know, the, the new CEO ConnectWise and the handoff and Tony Hawk and like the

[00:09:31] content, the stuff was really great.

[00:09:33] Um, you know, hearing about Cooper and, you know, whatever you think about Kaseo.

[00:09:38] Like, I think, uh, the DattoCon show was really, really good from a community, from

[00:09:42] content perspective.

[00:09:44] Um, for us, I mean, anything that jumped out, we had a rage room at our booth at IT Nation.

[00:09:49] I saw that.

[00:09:50] I'm sure I heard it.

[00:09:51] It was.

[00:09:51] To put together.

[00:09:53] Yeah.

[00:09:54] Our team crushed it.

[00:09:55] It was awesome.

[00:09:56] You also couldn't talk at all when people were destroying plates and TVs and monitors.

[00:10:02] And, um, it was, it was awesome though.

[00:10:04] That was, uh, something that we were, you know, I knew it was happening and I think it

[00:10:09] went even better than, than we thought it would.

[00:10:11] So that was pretty cool.

[00:10:12] It all goes back to the pirates and the death to the ticket.

[00:10:14] You know, I think it's really important to have a narrative and a

[00:10:19] pain that you're talking about to then solve.

[00:10:23] Um, and, and I think like, if you looked at the, however many hundred vendors or a hundred

[00:10:28] vendors at IT Nation and DattoCon, like the ones that talked about the pain that they solve

[00:10:34] before they just told you what they did, like, it's just such a better story.

[00:10:40] I mean, this is, I mean, we could probably go on a rant about product marketing, positioning,

[00:10:48] all that stuff.

[00:10:48] But like, I think to a large degree, since we, you know, you brought up both conferences

[00:10:54] and, you know, we can definitely talk a little bit more about the differences between the

[00:10:57] two, but like the client, the, the, the type of people I, there was definitely not a lot

[00:11:01] of overlap.

[00:11:02] There are some, but there was a very little overlap in the two conferences from, at least

[00:11:06] from what we saw with them being like back to back, which I think was like you had to

[00:11:10] pick, right?

[00:11:11] Like it was a week between you weren't probably going to both.

[00:11:14] Right.

[00:11:15] I'm not, I don't know whether these, you know, we talk about this all the time.

[00:11:18] It's like, can you, like, even if you're competitors, can you just talk and plan out

[00:11:21] the calendars that you don't have?

[00:11:23] Anyway.

[00:11:26] Yeah.

[00:11:26] There's definitely a race on price here, at least at the top, at the very, very top, there's

[00:11:31] a race on price and the, the bundling of all these products for like a set fee, you

[00:11:37] know, like the Microsoft effect of all of this, you know, 365 thing, right?

[00:11:41] Type things there's, that's definitely happening.

[00:11:45] And, but to your point, Bobby, if we're just talking about price, I think we lose.

[00:11:51] I, in my opinion, I think we lose.

[00:11:52] Like, what are we solving for?

[00:11:55] What's the pain now?

[00:11:57] I'm no K guy.

[00:11:59] I'll be, I'll be totally honest.

[00:12:01] I'm very Switzerland.

[00:12:02] All right.

[00:12:03] I got nobody behind me.

[00:12:04] I got no investors, you know, like, but I had sat in on the keynote on both.

[00:12:11] Right.

[00:12:11] So I sat in on the connect wise, I canation.

[00:12:13] I sat in on the data.

[00:12:16] When they start talking about, you know, like I hadn't sat in on the case.

[00:12:20] I want data one for a while.

[00:12:22] Right.

[00:12:22] Cause it was hadn't changed, but I sat in on this one and I'm like, they start talking

[00:12:27] about how the industry values MSPs financially.

[00:12:31] Right.

[00:12:32] Right.

[00:12:32] And like, if you're only making 10% to the bottom line as an MSP, like you're in a dangerous

[00:12:39] position.

[00:12:39] And like, by the way, any company, right.

[00:12:41] If you're not profitable, you're in trouble.

[00:12:43] Sure.

[00:12:44] So like when they start talking about getting you from 10%, 35%, I was just like, now I

[00:12:50] understand what you're like.

[00:12:52] That message makes sense to me as a, as a guy who's at the top check sign and checks

[00:12:57] kind of thing.

[00:12:58] So like, if that is where we're headed, right.

[00:13:01] If all of this tech is supposed to get us or the, or, or in this case, MSP, the IT services

[00:13:07] provider to produce a better product, create a better experience and actually show money,

[00:13:13] you know, in the positive at the end, that's what we're supposed to be doing.

[00:13:17] Yeah.

[00:13:18] I think like one thing with that, especially when you look at K 365 and, and some of these,

[00:13:24] like, I think they're really focused on cutting costs, uh, more efficient, more integration

[00:13:31] with your tool stacks.

[00:13:32] Your team can be more efficient and those things are really good where I don't see the big

[00:13:37] players focusing is experience.

[00:13:41] Like the end user experience, the technician experience charging or selling a premium product.

[00:13:48] Um, and I think that's, I mean, if you walk around the vendor hall, that's what security

[00:13:53] is, right.

[00:13:53] It's so you can, I mean, it's not so you can charge more, but if you have more security tools

[00:13:57] and you're selling a better security product, you're going to, that's where huge premium

[00:14:00] comes in.

[00:14:01] So that's like half of the vendor hall.

[00:14:03] And then the other thing was like, you know, we're both debatably in like the better experience

[00:14:08] world where it's like, if you do this better and smoother, you can add on other products

[00:14:13] or charge more for your product.

[00:14:15] I think that's the side that's getting missed in a lot of these keynotes is like, and,

[00:14:20] you know, you think of like seven figure MSP, Chris Weiser's on Facebook saying $300 a seat,

[00:14:24] $300 a seat, you know, even more than that.

[00:14:26] I've heard him say $1,200 a seat actually.

[00:14:28] But okay.

[00:14:30] To your, to your point, totally 1000% agree that what we're hearing is more about the

[00:14:35] MSPs experience, not the customer of the MSPs experience.

[00:14:39] No, no argument.

[00:14:41] So let me ask you this, then I'm going to just curveball you here, Bobby.

[00:14:45] Everybody's going down AI alley, right?

[00:14:48] I have bots and AI and agents and all this, whatever.

[00:14:52] Okay.

[00:14:54] Bobby, maybe I'm old school.

[00:14:56] I got all the apps, right?

[00:14:58] I'm, I'm, I'm hip, right?

[00:14:59] I'm, I'm trying to make my life easier like everyone else.

[00:15:02] But like, if I got a problem, I need to talk to somebody.

[00:15:07] That's just me.

[00:15:08] So like, if I'm in the middle, like we were all on planes, right?

[00:15:11] If I got an airline problem and I go into the chat in the app and the chat in the app

[00:15:16] doesn't get me the right answer with the AI, right?

[00:15:18] Like they're just giving me facts and whatever.

[00:15:21] And I'm like, okay, give me an agent then like solve my problem.

[00:15:24] How do I get to my place?

[00:15:25] Like at least design your technology to a way where if I need to get to a live body somewhere,

[00:15:31] whether it's behind a phone or a keyboard or whatever, I can get there quickly.

[00:15:36] Like that's the thing that kind of rubs me, right?

[00:15:38] Like I don't get it.

[00:15:39] Like I appreciate they're like one of the, in one of the keynotes, they were like, well,

[00:15:44] you have two options.

[00:15:45] You can keep on outsourcing, right?

[00:15:48] You know, you can keep trying to lower your costs by outsourcing to a low, you know,

[00:15:51] to another country, whatever, to bring your costs down.

[00:15:54] Or you can use the AI technology to lower your burden up front.

[00:15:58] So you just don't need as many people.

[00:16:00] I don't know, like fast forward, just let's just go three years from now.

[00:16:05] Yeah.

[00:16:06] Where does that, where does that argument go?

[00:16:08] I mean, I lean towards the second, the second option.

[00:16:12] And I think we're starting to see a lot of that today.

[00:16:15] To your point, like AI, it can't be like, I think of Southwest and Delta.

[00:16:19] Like I was talking to a CEO of a very large MSP at IT Nation who was telling me that he

[00:16:27] chats with Delta just because the experience is so good.

[00:16:30] Like when he doesn't need anything, he's like, I literally opened my Delta app and I chat

[00:16:33] with it.

[00:16:34] And I, he's like, I just want to see how cool technology is working.

[00:16:38] And to him, the Delta chat is like, gotta be the top star.

[00:16:42] And to me, I'm like, yeah, I've used Southwest and Chase and a lot of things lately.

[00:16:45] And they are not the North star.

[00:16:46] Like it is awful that it's just suggesting docs that are not the right docs.

[00:16:51] And then you can't actually talk to someone and it's just thumbs up or thumbs down afterwards.

[00:16:54] And that's what like everyone's picture is, right?

[00:16:56] Like no one wants that.

[00:16:57] Everyone's afraid of maybe offering that.

[00:17:00] But if you take someone who like, I promise the CEO didn't love chat a few years ago.

[00:17:05] Right.

[00:17:06] And so I think like, if you can get someone a better experience and they experience it

[00:17:13] once, then they're going to keep going back to it.

[00:17:16] And their mind's going to change really quick.

[00:17:17] And so like, when we talk about, do you outsource to get prices lower or do you bring it in

[00:17:22] house and just get a lot of things automated?

[00:17:25] The stuff where chatting is a better experience.

[00:17:28] Hey, it's a password reset.

[00:17:29] It's really basic.

[00:17:30] It's just answering a lot of questions and I can do it instantly.

[00:17:32] I don't have to wait on a technician and then it can kick off to an RPA tool.

[00:17:36] And the end user did it at their speed and it happened right away.

[00:17:42] That's awesome.

[00:17:43] That's the dream, but is it real?

[00:17:45] Yeah.

[00:17:45] We're doing that today.

[00:17:47] Now it's early, but we are doing that with our customer facing agentic chat.

[00:17:52] We are very opinionated on don't put chat out there.

[00:17:56] That's just going to like say, Hey, here's five ways that might solve what you're doing.

[00:18:00] Try it.

[00:18:01] It's either you've built a very specific workflow that the AI can pick up on and kick the end

[00:18:06] user into that.

[00:18:08] Or it's just doing like very basic back and forth and passing it to a technician.

[00:18:13] And at a point three years from now, I think we'll look really different.

[00:18:16] We're trying to do the like stuff that does feel magical today.

[00:18:21] That's end user facing.

[00:18:22] That's okay.

[00:18:23] Okay.

[00:18:23] So like I was in a podcast at in Miami and my, my argument was Chick-fil-A.

[00:18:32] We're going to keep on using brands.

[00:18:33] Everybody knows.

[00:18:34] Our team literally was talking about Chick-fil-A today from a service analogy.

[00:18:38] So I'm excited for your analogy.

[00:18:39] All right.

[00:18:40] We have Delta.

[00:18:40] We have Southwest.

[00:18:41] All right.

[00:18:41] Chick-fil-A.

[00:18:42] Right.

[00:18:42] I believe out of all of the fast food, actually they call them quick service restaurants.

[00:18:47] Did you know that?

[00:18:47] But whatever.

[00:18:48] Fast food.

[00:18:48] I didn't.

[00:18:49] I've heard fast casual, quick service.

[00:18:51] I like it.

[00:18:52] Okay.

[00:18:52] All right.

[00:18:52] Yeah.

[00:18:53] QS.

[00:18:53] Casual is a different category.

[00:18:55] So I got you on quick service.

[00:18:56] Cool.

[00:18:56] So like they clearly nailed the drive-through experience.

[00:18:59] Right.

[00:19:01] But Chick-fil-A as a company has made a wager because if you go to any modern Chick-fil-A,

[00:19:07] they got two lanes.

[00:19:08] They got the mobile through and they got the drive-through.

[00:19:11] And I frequent Chick-fil-A a lot, if you didn't know.

[00:19:14] But I've seen like your point.

[00:19:15] I think.

[00:19:16] Have you posted screenshots of your points before?

[00:19:18] Yes.

[00:19:18] For sure.

[00:19:19] I've seen that.

[00:19:19] It's awesome.

[00:19:20] So it's funny.

[00:19:22] In Orlando, I took a couple of people to Chick-fil-A and the one guy's like, show her how many

[00:19:27] points you have.

[00:19:27] I was like, sure.

[00:19:28] And so the Chick-fil-A on the counter is like, wow.

[00:19:32] She's like, I've only ever seen like 25,000.

[00:19:34] He's like, that's ridiculous.

[00:19:35] And I was like, all right, cool.

[00:19:37] So like, apparently I even wowed some of the people who worked there.

[00:19:39] Either way.

[00:19:39] Yeah.

[00:19:41] The mobile through.

[00:19:42] They've made a bet that at some point in the near future, they will see traffic go

[00:19:48] more into mobile through than through drive-through.

[00:19:51] I tell you today, and I've been to many Chick-fil-A's, but if I just use the one down the street

[00:19:55] for me, the mobile through is not busy at all.

[00:19:58] Like you may see for every one or two cars in mobile through, there's 10 cars in drive-through.

[00:20:02] Now, is that because Chick-fil-A has just made the drive-through experience so efficient?

[00:20:05] They just don't want to even do the pre-ordering?

[00:20:08] Probably.

[00:20:08] Probably.

[00:20:08] But my point to you is how long does it take for their bet to shake out one way or another?

[00:20:14] What went, is it three years from now?

[00:20:16] Is it 50-50?

[00:20:17] Does it finally break to the other way?

[00:20:19] I don't know.

[00:20:20] But right now, it's like 10-90.

[00:20:22] Like 90% in the drive-through, 10% in the mobile through.

[00:20:26] Yeah.

[00:20:27] I mean, bringing that analogy into IT support experience, well, let's not first.

[00:20:32] When does that break for Chick-fil-A?

[00:20:35] I would wager that it's breaking for McDonald's faster because their drive-through experience

[00:20:40] sucks and their mobile app experience is great.

[00:20:43] Okay.

[00:20:44] But Chick-fil-A, to your point, it's not as much value.

[00:20:48] Also, in McDonald's, if you use the app, you get extra discounts where I don't think Chick-fil-A

[00:20:54] works that way.

[00:20:55] That's fair.

[00:20:55] So let me go the other way.

[00:20:57] Let's talk about McDonald's for a second.

[00:20:58] They did a three-state, 90-location AI test where they took the Google Voice Translate

[00:21:06] app or something to that equivalent.

[00:21:09] They basically set up the drive-through so that you're just talking to it and it's trying

[00:21:14] to order for you.

[00:21:15] And they've since abandoned that and went back to human beings answering.

[00:21:19] So was the technology not good enough to take the computer and make it into the order

[00:21:25] taker?

[00:21:26] It seems like that's what happened.

[00:21:28] Yeah.

[00:21:29] Yeah.

[00:21:30] Yeah, probably.

[00:21:31] You know, I think those types of tests to get data for the future are great.

[00:21:36] I would guess that they knew that it wasn't going to be like, okay, we're crushing it.

[00:21:40] Let's put this in every business.

[00:21:42] Maybe they hoped, but yeah, I don't know.

[00:21:46] That's interesting.

[00:21:47] It certainly isn't there yet for that use case.

[00:21:50] But to take that analogy into the service business and IT, because food is service, but into

[00:21:57] the IT, there's a lot of topics that that hits on.

[00:22:01] One is there's a lot of things you can do without the end user choosing.

[00:22:05] So like the backend automation of like, are we setting fields in the PSA?

[00:22:10] Are we setting the priority and the category?

[00:22:12] And like, one thing we just started doing is rewriting the title of tickets with AI just

[00:22:16] to help the technicians like, or the dispatchers have more insight.

[00:22:20] That's right there.

[00:22:21] That's fair.

[00:22:22] Because how many times is the title?

[00:22:23] Like, absolutely not has anything to do.

[00:22:25] Like maybe it started off one way and then like it went another way and they never went

[00:22:28] back.

[00:22:29] And yeah, fair, fair.

[00:22:30] Or they said like help.

[00:22:31] But then two messages later, all the context is there, but the title still help.

[00:22:35] So there's some low hanging fruit where it's like, AI can be helpful internally on the service

[00:22:41] desk.

[00:22:41] Now for the end customer, there's some of like, do you opt them into it?

[00:22:47] Or do you sell them on it?

[00:22:50] And we tend to say like, just turn it on.

[00:22:54] And if they say the word help, have AI say, what do you need help with?

[00:22:59] Right?

[00:22:59] Just like an instant response.

[00:23:01] I don't think anyone is like, someone's going to hate that.

[00:23:04] They're going to be so mad that like it asked them for more information when they started

[00:23:08] with a terrible first message.

[00:23:10] Now, if they say, I need to reset my password.

[00:23:13] And it's like, here's 25 documents on the internet that may help you with that.

[00:23:16] But that's where it's like, people could have tons of opinions.

[00:23:21] Obviously, that's an extreme example.

[00:23:22] No one would want that.

[00:23:23] There's a lot of room between there that I think is where the decision comes in.

[00:23:28] But I think like at Thread, we're starting with like, here's the baseline that's just

[00:23:32] a no-brainer that everyone's going to agree with, going to make a huge impact on your business.

[00:23:36] And then if you want to go further with it, you can do that with our tool.

[00:23:41] And we have further recommendations on that stuff.

[00:23:43] So yeah, I don't know where those analogies are at McDonald's.

[00:23:46] They probably have automation that we don't know about, right?

[00:23:49] That's just helping their team more internally.

[00:23:51] It's funny.

[00:23:52] So let me go just one step further.

[00:23:54] So McDonald's had two locations.

[00:23:57] They've since slightly adjusted them because I guess, again, your dream and the reality

[00:24:03] may not 100% line up.

[00:24:04] But they did have two locations earlier this year.

[00:24:07] I believe one in Vegas and one in Dallas that were 100% automated, like literally no human

[00:24:12] beings, they had like one person restocking basically.

[00:24:16] Wow.

[00:24:16] That's crazy.

[00:24:17] They've since added a couple more people in there, right?

[00:24:20] And like the kitchen part and stuff like that.

[00:24:22] But like for a period of time, we're talking completely, you want to talk about RPA, robotic

[00:24:27] process automation, the whole thing.

[00:24:30] Yeah.

[00:24:31] Absolutely.

[00:24:32] It was a robot.

[00:24:32] Okay.

[00:24:33] And like clearly somebody made a decision at McDonald's in this pilot that certain things

[00:24:39] might not be 100% there.

[00:24:40] They added now, I think like three people now are working on shifts, but compared to the

[00:24:45] normal McDonald's is probably a lot less, right?

[00:24:47] Like you've seen a lot of the McDonald's.

[00:24:49] At least I was, I went to one in Sydney and it's the same, like in the UK.

[00:24:54] Now you're seeing a lot of the US locations where like you go in and like there's eight

[00:24:57] oversized iPhone, like ordering stations, right?

[00:25:01] Like huge, like just bigger screens where you're doing all the ordering yourself.

[00:25:05] And then you're just waiting for your number to be called, right?

[00:25:07] Like that.

[00:25:08] And it's pretty good.

[00:25:09] No, no, that's good.

[00:25:11] But like they were like to the point where like it went through and made your order and

[00:25:15] out on a conveyor belt came your order and you just like, like that deep, right?

[00:25:21] So I believe that we're probably not that far away.

[00:25:25] Like when we say three years from now, I mean, hell, although I've heard the original

[00:25:31] producer of iRobot, you know, the one with Will Smith.

[00:25:34] Yeah.

[00:25:35] Yeah.

[00:25:35] You know, he knocked Elon.

[00:25:36] He's like, yeah, your stuff you're putting out looks awful similar to like our movie.

[00:25:41] And he started doing side by shot, side by side.

[00:25:43] But like they, Tesla sells a $35,000 robot now that you can buy for your home.

[00:25:49] Like it's a thing, right?

[00:25:50] Like the movies came to life, like short of the Star Trek transporter, like a lot of stuff

[00:25:55] has come out in a short while, right?

[00:25:57] So absolutely.

[00:25:59] It's cool how fast technology is moving.

[00:26:01] We're in a great time to be alive.

[00:26:03] Like think about what, think about the iPhone came out, what?

[00:26:07] 2007?

[00:26:09] 2007, I believe is the first iPhone.

[00:26:12] Yeah.

[00:26:12] So now it's huge jump.

[00:26:15] Insane.

[00:26:16] And so, yeah, I mean, the rate of progress continues to be faster.

[00:26:21] But there's so much opportunity right now with like, yeah, I mean, you just think the iPhone

[00:26:27] getting the first like AI into it, which I think.

[00:26:31] Just now, just this version, 16, right?

[00:26:34] Yeah.

[00:26:34] And even that they didn't launch it when it came out.

[00:26:36] So I think we're going to see another release soon.

[00:26:39] That'll be pretty cool.

[00:26:40] But yeah, I mean, the opportunity like back house, back of office, things are just starting

[00:26:47] to get there.

[00:26:47] If you look at every department in B-Boy, like every department could be using more AI.

[00:26:53] There's a lot of areas.

[00:26:55] Oh, I'll be honest with you.

[00:26:57] I think we turned on Copilot for three people just to start playing.

[00:27:00] Like we really haven't adopted it in like the day-to-day operation.

[00:27:05] We have had, you know, on that end, we have had people come to us and they're like, hey,

[00:27:10] I have the Amazon, Google, OpenAI, you know, Microsoft's, you know, equivalent of this,

[00:27:18] right?

[00:27:18] Like, can we hook in via API?

[00:27:20] Sure.

[00:27:21] You know, absolutely.

[00:27:22] And like, you can start to do some cool things.

[00:27:24] But at the end of the day, like, I think there's a little bit of a question.

[00:27:28] And maybe you guys have like progressed this, right?

[00:27:31] It's what's practical and what's consistent, right?

[00:27:37] Like, I think your experience as an end customer breaks down when 10 people go in to do the

[00:27:42] same thing and only half the time it works.

[00:27:45] Totally.

[00:27:46] Or 70%, 80%.

[00:27:48] Like, it has to be really consistent to your point.

[00:27:50] Yeah, like you need absolutely consistent, producible outcomes so that your customers

[00:27:55] walk away and say, I was a little bit skittish, but it did what I needed to and it did it

[00:28:00] fast and I didn't have to go back again.

[00:28:02] If I can fix those three, two or three things, you probably have a good outcome.

[00:28:07] But let me throw another curveball at you, Bob.

[00:28:09] Do it.

[00:28:11] You know, not long, I think it was like two or three years, like right during the pandemic

[00:28:15] era, T-Mobile started firing customers because they called into the call center too many

[00:28:20] times.

[00:28:21] All right.

[00:28:21] They basically were like, you're too expensive as an end customer or cutting you.

[00:28:25] Yeah.

[00:28:25] It's funny that they actually went and did that, but I digress.

[00:28:28] Some, some bean counter behind there figure it out.

[00:28:33] Do you see some MSPs charging a premium to just be like, we'll continue letting you get

[00:28:41] straight to a human being.

[00:28:42] And we even make that a domestic based human being, right?

[00:28:46] But we're going to charge you the Delta premium.

[00:28:50] Do you see people-

[00:28:51] To be able to get to a human.

[00:28:52] Yeah.

[00:28:53] Just like, Hey, we're just going to let you be able to get to human first interaction right

[00:28:57] away, but you're going to pay a hike on that versus all the other stuff we're putting

[00:29:02] in to bring the price down.

[00:29:03] Like, do you see that type of separation now?

[00:29:05] I think it can separate so many ways.

[00:29:08] I long run.

[00:29:09] I think that's probably right.

[00:29:12] But what's the use case?

[00:29:13] Like, why do you do that?

[00:29:14] It's seemingly because someone doesn't think the automations is good.

[00:29:18] So that's assuming that either people's mindsets just won't adopt automation.

[00:29:23] Some people, or the automation truly isn't as good.

[00:29:26] I think right now I'm seeing some people go the other way of like, you want instant automation,

[00:29:31] pay us for it.

[00:29:33] Otherwise you have to talk to our team who may not get to you as fast and we'll do stuff

[00:29:37] manually and may make more errors.

[00:29:40] I've seen sell automated service tools, like automated onboardings and stuff.

[00:29:46] Well, let me ask you a second level question then.

[00:29:48] But do the people who are making that pitch have resources in house that this average MSP

[00:29:53] may not have, right?

[00:29:54] Like, do they have the people behind the scenes that are constantly tweaking and adjusting?

[00:30:00] Automation engineers and they're working with their own LLMs or working with really cool

[00:30:03] vendors.

[00:30:04] Absolutely.

[00:30:05] Yeah.

[00:30:05] Yeah.

[00:30:05] For sure.

[00:30:05] So the more mature guys have the runway for that.

[00:30:09] But let's say if the average MSP is, I don't know, sub 10 people, let's call it.

[00:30:15] Maybe even sub five, but let's just say sub 10.

[00:30:17] It wasn't that long ago where they barely had an RMM guy or a person in house that could

[00:30:25] actually do that part of it.

[00:30:27] Yeah.

[00:30:27] Well, I think that's where the vendors really need to step up because right now almost every

[00:30:32] vendor has AI and almost every vendor you have to write JSON to make it work.

[00:30:39] And it's just like, and even the vendors like, I don't know if I would use this.

[00:30:43] Like it kind of works with our tool, but it's kind of, it's beta and we don't really know.

[00:30:50] We're not perfect.

[00:30:51] There's areas of our tool that are not easy to use, but there's some areas where you click

[00:30:54] a button and the AI works.

[00:30:55] And even if you had an automation engineer, they couldn't do anything with it.

[00:30:59] Like we just have an opinion on how you should write a time entry.

[00:31:03] And if we click a button, we write the time entry that way for you.

[00:31:06] And you can edit it after, but an engineer is not going to do anything with that.

[00:31:09] And so I think that's where it's going.

[00:31:11] Like I'm a small MSP.

[00:31:12] I want automated onboarding.

[00:31:14] There's vendors that are just going to have drag and drop.

[00:31:17] This is how you build an automated onboarding.

[00:31:19] There's a few questions you answer for us and it just works.

[00:31:22] And I, I'm sure MSPs will continue to have automation engineers and they'll just be going

[00:31:27] beyond the basic stuff.

[00:31:28] But the things now that people are winning with are going to be basic soon.

[00:31:33] Okay.

[00:31:34] So you're, you know, so your position is, Hey, the stuff that is consistently producible,

[00:31:39] the stuff that is here now at the bottom of the conversation, some of that is number

[00:31:46] one available.

[00:31:47] Number two, you don't need to be a rocket scientist to get it to work.

[00:31:50] And number three, the price is worth the investment.

[00:31:55] Yeah.

[00:31:56] And I think like behind the scenes, our team, like, again, I'm biased.

[00:32:00] I'm just talking about the stuff we're doing.

[00:32:01] Like our team is more involved than they will be in the future.

[00:32:04] Like there's some of our stuff that's out of the box means our team's helping you build

[00:32:08] it.

[00:32:09] And like, there is still building happening, but you know, we're doing some of that.

[00:32:12] There is some stuff that's just like pure out of the box and it was really great.

[00:32:16] But yeah, I mean, a year from now vendors that have no out of the box end to end AI

[00:32:21] will.

[00:32:22] Right.

[00:32:23] No, I mean, listen, Bobby, again, we've both been around the block for a minute.

[00:32:26] Like back in the, you know, in the earlier days of some of the, you know, staple companies

[00:32:32] in the industry, they were writing all the integrations.

[00:32:35] They got to a point where they're like, we can't keep on doing this.

[00:32:38] And they flipped it around and said, here's our API build, whatever you want.

[00:32:41] Right.

[00:32:41] Like everything gets to the glass ceiling point where that flip has to happen.

[00:32:47] I, you know, I would say on the AI conversation, I think we're still early days.

[00:32:52] Like, I know a lot of people are like, it's like a wild, wild west.

[00:32:55] Everybody's trying everything.

[00:32:56] And like cool things may or may not come from that, depending on like, but again, reproducible,

[00:33:02] I think is my word, right?

[00:33:03] Consistent and reproducible.

[00:33:04] If you can't get it, can you rely on it from a business standpoint?

[00:33:07] But like from a cool factor, totally cool fact.

[00:33:10] No argument.

[00:33:11] Like there's some futuristic stuff that's like actually in front of you now.

[00:33:16] The question is.

[00:33:17] Are you shipping it?

[00:33:18] Are you using it on a daily basis with your team, with your customers?

[00:33:22] Isn't it enough for my customer to say, hey, this is different, but try it.

[00:33:27] And we think you're going to have a really good experience from this.

[00:33:29] This is the question.

[00:33:30] So, and the alternative world that came before it was, hey, I'm either going to be big enough that I can answer all of those interactions real time,

[00:33:43] or am I shipping that to a third party and hoping that it's good?

[00:33:49] Now, this is just my personal experience.

[00:33:52] So if you listen to this, I'm not speaking for anyone other than what I went through real time, my life.

[00:33:58] Help, the outside help desks thing in practice on paper sounds great.

[00:34:03] But the time when a customer came to me as an MSP and said, I called to fix my email password, Microsoft, and I was on the phone for 17 minutes.

[00:34:15] Like that's never good.

[00:34:17] Like the end of that conversation ended like this, Bobby.

[00:34:21] If you don't find a different way for this to be handled, like if that's a vendor you're using, you better get rid of them or I'm getting rid of you.

[00:34:29] Like literally, that is how the company.

[00:34:31] 100%.

[00:34:31] Now, it didn't get there right away.

[00:34:34] They tried it.

[00:34:35] I asked them to try it.

[00:34:36] They were willing to give it a try.

[00:34:39] There was consecutive bad interactions that bubbled up to, I'm done.

[00:34:43] Yep.

[00:34:44] I ran into a number of MSPs at IT Nation who were actively moving away from an outsource help desk.

[00:34:50] And we're planning to do it with automation.

[00:34:52] I mean, I don't want to, it's a whole category of vendors.

[00:34:56] So I don't want to speak too strongly.

[00:34:58] But when you think about like what in the MSP space tooling wise or vendor wise is going to get replaced first, like outsource help desk is a good category to talk about.

[00:35:09] I think the biggest concern, I think it still applies to this conversation.

[00:35:13] Ready?

[00:35:15] I'm concerned when I worked really hard and set the bar this high.

[00:35:20] And when I outsource it to a third party, I can only get this high.

[00:35:24] And that gap is enough for your customer to get frustrated.

[00:35:27] Exactly.

[00:35:28] And what types of issues are that outsourced group handling?

[00:35:33] Easy ones.

[00:35:34] But here's where they're coming back to it, right?

[00:35:37] All of them almost, and I've not talked to all of them, but the ones that I've talked to, I've talked to at least a half dozen in my day.

[00:35:43] They're like, if it's documented, we'll try it.

[00:35:45] And you could create the best you've ever seen videos, screenshots and how to's step by step.

[00:35:52] Somehow they always escalate those.

[00:35:55] They never can, like they almost like they don't even try.

[00:35:58] And I'm like, but I gave you the documentation.

[00:35:59] They're like, well, and they're like, all of a sudden it got gray on me, you know?

[00:36:03] So like, I don't know.

[00:36:06] I just like my, you know, this, this is, this is a classic conversation that I don't think goes away.

[00:36:11] If it's the human being experience is now this, can I get automation close to it?

[00:36:17] It's the same conversation as my human being experiences this, but my outsourced human being experience never got past this.

[00:36:24] This, you know, I'll even give you an, a vendor side of the equation.

[00:36:28] If you do an event in Vegas, would it be great or could you only get it to okay?

[00:36:33] Why?

[00:36:33] Because everybody's just going to go to Vegas and never going to show up to your event.

[00:36:36] It's like, this is to say, you know, we can profile this a thousand ways, right?

[00:36:40] So, but from an MSP standpoint, you know, I disagree with the, no offense, right?

[00:36:47] It's a lot of smart people out there calling the industry talking heads, right?

[00:36:50] But it's like, it's like, well, if they needed an MSP, they already got one.

[00:36:54] And the only way you're adding more business to your MSPs, you're stealing it away from another MSP.

[00:36:58] I don't believe that.

[00:36:59] Not at all.

[00:37:00] I think that's false.

[00:37:01] I think there's a lot of companies.

[00:37:03] Actually, I saw an infographic yesterday, Bobby.

[00:37:07] Only 23% of a company in 2013 that would be categorized as Fortune 100 exists today.

[00:37:15] Yeah.

[00:37:17] Like there is an ebb and flow to the whole economy of the world, right?

[00:37:21] Or even just the US or whatever country you're in, right?

[00:37:23] Like staying power is its own magic, right?

[00:37:27] A hundred percent.

[00:37:28] So there's new customers, new companies available.

[00:37:32] And then I don't have the percentage off the top of my head exactly.

[00:37:36] But the amount of SMBs that work with an MSP, it's low.

[00:37:43] So there's so much business out there.

[00:37:46] Right.

[00:37:47] But to the point where people have said, well, the industry is being commoditized to the point where the end customer doesn't need help.

[00:37:56] I disagree.

[00:37:57] That's getting more technical, more complicated, more reliant on IT.

[00:38:01] I think there's a lot of cool tech out there.

[00:38:03] And we're talking about AI as part of the conversation here.

[00:38:06] There's a lot of cool tech coming out.

[00:38:07] But how do we take their ingredients and create a recipe that makes sense?

[00:38:13] Right.

[00:38:14] Can I run my business on it?

[00:38:15] And this is back to the original conversation.

[00:38:17] Do you trust the newer tech to make your experience good, good enough, as good as what you have now?

[00:38:29] This is the question.

[00:38:30] And why do we ask this question?

[00:38:31] Two reasons.

[00:38:32] Are we trying to take the existing customers, keep them here and add more?

[00:38:40] Or are we trying to do more with less?

[00:38:45] Right.

[00:38:45] Can I squeeze more output out of my group by not adding resources so we can get back to that original thing that I talked about?

[00:38:55] Are you profitable?

[00:38:57] Right.

[00:38:58] Does your company make 10% or 35% to the bottom line?

[00:39:02] It's a huge disparity.

[00:39:04] Absolutely.

[00:39:05] Yep.

[00:39:06] And are you cutting costs?

[00:39:08] Or are you growing?

[00:39:10] Or both?

[00:39:12] How are you approaching it?

[00:39:14] Well, I'll say this.

[00:39:15] If you're not growing, you're dying.

[00:39:17] That was the old president of the 76ers here in Philadelphia said this many times.

[00:39:22] I'm sure he didn't make enough either.

[00:39:23] But it's like you're naturally – and I think we all experience this as an industry during COVID.

[00:39:28] People grow.

[00:39:29] They shrink.

[00:39:29] They go to business.

[00:39:30] That's just the nature of the wheel, right?

[00:39:33] The economy running.

[00:39:35] So as an MSP, you feel that on the secondary swing of that, right?

[00:39:39] Like your customers are just part of the bigger realm.

[00:39:41] However, as an MSP, if you're not continuing to prospect and bring in new customers, you're making an awful big gamble that your existing customers never go away.

[00:39:51] But I don't think that that's a good gamble.

[00:39:53] I think you lose.

[00:39:54] So my point to you is, you know, I think in the beginning of every business, Bobby, like if you went and started Bobby Inc. tomorrow, you go out, you do a lot of marketing, you do a lot of handshaking, you do a lot of things to get new business.

[00:40:08] But then you saturate your pipeline with customers.

[00:40:10] How do you bring new customers in?

[00:40:13] Right?

[00:40:13] You kind of stop that activity, right?

[00:40:15] Totally.

[00:40:15] Yeah.

[00:40:16] I think that's where every business, you know, it's like, you know, needs to understand what's going on.

[00:40:21] So back to experience.

[00:40:22] I don't care if you're a vendor.

[00:40:23] I don't care if it's an MSP.

[00:40:24] I don't care if it's a customer of an MSP.

[00:40:26] Because by the way, and maybe I'll ask you this question.

[00:40:29] Have you created a good enough experience where the customer of the MSP comes to them and says, hey, we want to offer something similar to our end customers.

[00:40:37] What can you do for us?

[00:40:40] Yeah.

[00:40:40] Yeah.

[00:40:41] I mean, we've seen that happen some.

[00:40:42] I think something that we think about is, will an end customer go to an MSP and say, we want that tool?

[00:40:50] Right?

[00:40:51] Like, I think both of those are great.

[00:40:53] It's that, you know, then that kind of gets into marketing.

[00:40:56] Like, are you marketing to the general public and trying to get it inbound?

[00:41:00] That's expensive and complicated and stuff.

[00:41:02] But that would be cool.

[00:41:02] And it's happened before for all of us some.

[00:41:06] But yeah, I think what you're talking about, I want to offer that.

[00:41:09] And that, you know, in this space, like there's so much sell through.

[00:41:12] That's why people are excited about the opportunity of from a vendor perspective of working with MSPs.

[00:41:17] Because there's the bigger base.

[00:41:18] We are not sell through.

[00:41:19] We just sell to MSPs.

[00:41:21] So yeah, I mean, we certainly think about like, how could we change that?

[00:41:25] How could we empower MSPs to provide the same service with our tool to the end users and so on and so forth?

[00:41:32] I have ideas.

[00:41:33] I don't know.

[00:41:34] You guys do that.

[00:41:35] That's like, that's the whole thing.

[00:41:36] Listen, I mean, this is where like, the brain trust of the community comes out with, hey, it would be cool if versus, hey, it would make a lot of sense if, right?

[00:41:46] Like we can separate those.

[00:41:48] But yeah, I'll tell you this.

[00:41:50] I think, and we've been hearing it from the talking head guys for a decade.

[00:41:55] Hey, trusted advisor, business advisor, be in the strategic conversation.

[00:41:59] You're not just a plumber, right?

[00:42:01] Okay.

[00:42:01] All right.

[00:42:02] But like at some point, the maturity level of your end customer has to move up, just like the maturity level of the MSP has to move up over time.

[00:42:11] Is your customer coming to you saying, hey, let's talk about the line of business app, our CRM, our PSA, our internal tools, our sales, our marketing, right?

[00:42:21] Our customer service.

[00:42:22] The similar, it may not be identical, but similar motions in your end customer's business may very much reflect what happens inside of an MSP.

[00:42:33] Yeah.

[00:42:34] So I think when you get to that, I don't know if you want to call it VCIO or strategic conversation or whatever, right?

[00:42:40] Like being able to jump an outside consultant outside of technology land to that conversation with your business decision maker from your customer standpoint, I think that changes how you're viewed from are you providing value or are you just a commodity service?

[00:43:01] All that being said, customer experience, in my opinion, and I agree with you a thousand percent, Bobby, if you're not delivering an okay customer experience, let's even say good customers, forget great, forget awesome.

[00:43:15] Let's just say okay and good.

[00:43:19] If you create enough pain back to what you said in the beginning, customer, when they get an opportunity, you're going to leave, right?

[00:43:25] I mean, just like that.

[00:43:27] So let me ask you some pointed questions about the product.

[00:43:31] Have you guys been able to come up with a percentage of how much time can be saved with customers interacting with your tool versus the old schooler?

[00:43:40] Yeah.

[00:43:41] You know, we've chat has been our thing for a while, like in customers chatting from teams or Slack and going to manage or wherever.

[00:43:47] On chat tickets, we see them close 30% faster when they're done right.

[00:43:51] That's not like every chat tool.

[00:43:53] When people use our chat tool, that's the main data we have.

[00:43:56] We see tickets close 30% faster.

[00:43:59] Obviously, that's really great.

[00:44:01] There's a lot of stuff on how many tickets can you get to move to chat, which we see typically 30% to 40%.

[00:44:07] We have some MSPs that thread in chat is the only way that they take tickets now.

[00:44:13] There's no phone or email.

[00:44:15] That's not most MSPs or even most of our partners, but there are some, which is, I think, a great indicator.

[00:44:22] So that's the baseline.

[00:44:23] Chat tickets close 30% faster.

[00:44:25] If you can move 30%, 40% of your tickets to chat, what would that do to your business?

[00:44:29] Right.

[00:44:30] So if I went into an Excel spreadsheet, I went back 12 months, I figured out total number of tickets, average time spent per ticket, my labor rate, and I just do the math.

[00:44:39] This is the math of what, you know, if you're saying, even on the, if I take the conservative route, let's just say 30%, you know, of that can be moved.

[00:44:51] How much, you know, how much does that play in terms of cost?

[00:44:55] Yeah, exactly.

[00:44:56] And then you think about like, you know, we could really build like a whole feature stack overall.

[00:45:02] Like we see when you're using our automation, everything tickets close about 78% faster overall.

[00:45:09] Okay.

[00:45:09] When we're categorizing, prioritizing, rewriting the title, like basically doing full triage.

[00:45:15] Some tickets we can close with no human interaction.

[00:45:18] So that kind of like skyrockets the ROI and everything, right?

[00:45:22] When it's like, okay, now what if 15% of your tickets, you never touch.

[00:45:27] Now we're getting back into the RMM days where like it opened up a ticket, it added time, it said it did something via the script, it closed it, and then it, you know, moved on, right?

[00:45:35] Yeah.

[00:45:36] So that's like, you know, how can I download email on my phone?

[00:45:41] How do I do this in Microsoft?

[00:45:42] Like questions like that, where you already have the knowledge in your database and it just responds and you're good to go or your documentation.

[00:45:51] Long-winded way to say there's a lot of value in chat.

[00:45:55] There's a lot of value in the automation when you combine them both, like we're seeing 80% decrease in time resolution for a lot of our partners.

[00:46:05] Okay.

[00:46:05] So I think there's some subcategories in my Excel spreadsheet.

[00:46:10] Tickets that are totally non-human touched, the amount of time being spent, right?

[00:46:15] In aggregate.

[00:46:17] And then, and this is a little bit harder to quantify, Bobby, but like, well, my customer experience goes up because my issues are getting fixed faster.

[00:46:26] I think, how do you put a value to that?

[00:46:29] I think that's the little gray, right?

[00:46:31] I think what makes it really gray is the average CSAT score for an MSP today is like 98%.

[00:46:37] It's, it's BS.

[00:46:39] Like CSAT is useless.

[00:46:40] I think you should do it, but you shouldn't care about it.

[00:46:45] Like if your CSAT's low, care about it.

[00:46:47] If your CSAT's high, you're just like everyone else.

[00:46:49] Don't even pat yourself on the back.

[00:46:52] I've, this is a whole soapbox I can go on.

[00:46:55] So we see CSAT increase, but like, I don't think that really matters because your CSAT's already crazy.

[00:47:00] That doesn't mean you provide a good customer experience.

[00:47:03] It just means CSAT's broken.

[00:47:06] So when you talk about making an end user experience better, you have to get a lot more creative about what that looks like.

[00:47:13] I think that promoter score, customer effort score, like there's different ways to do those things.

[00:47:19] Um, I think a lot of it is like referrals and time to resolution and that stuff are ways to get insight into it.

[00:47:26] That's interesting.

[00:47:27] So you, you, you're, you're devaluing CSAT, not exactly the, you know, the, the big, you know, are you doing good indicator that you, everybody says that it is.

[00:47:37] Okay.

[00:47:37] Net promoter score.

[00:47:39] I think the most anyone ever does net promoter promoter scores, maybe like quarterly is probably the most aggressive I've seen it.

[00:47:45] Um, but okay.

[00:47:47] Cause that's more of a, how are we doing overall conversation?

[00:47:50] Right.

[00:47:51] I think customer efforts, the biggest thing, how hard was it to work with us today?

[00:47:55] Or what was the hardest part of working with us today?

[00:47:57] It takes it away from the technician.

[00:47:59] It's not like, Oh, Billy was nice.

[00:48:00] I don't want Billy to not get his bonus or to get hurt.

[00:48:03] He, even though it was super hard to get to Billy and he wasn't great.

[00:48:07] I'm not going to give him a three.

[00:48:08] Cause I know that's going to like ruin his life and he has kids and stuff.

[00:48:11] Right.

[00:48:11] So I'm going to give him a, like, that's a big reason customer or a CSAT's broken.

[00:48:15] Oh, okay.

[00:48:17] That's a good point.

[00:48:17] I didn't think about that.

[00:48:19] All right.

[00:48:20] So like, do you, in your tool, are you, are you giving some sort of capturing mechanism on how that interaction went or.

[00:48:28] We're not, we do send CSATs and customer effort and we see the response rate go way up, which is the other thing that's broken is the average response rate for CSAT is like 22% for MSPs.

[00:48:40] So yeah, again, not helpful, but if you can get it to 60%, which we've seen a lot of our partners do when it's sent through chat instead of email, then it starts to be more meaningful.

[00:48:50] I mean, 60% is very high.

[00:48:52] I agree there for sure.

[00:48:54] I think, I think you're right.

[00:48:55] 20 to 25% is the average response rate, which.

[00:48:59] You know, I guess as a sampling is bad, but that's a very small component.

[00:49:03] It was not.

[00:49:04] Yeah.

[00:49:04] It's not a sampling.

[00:49:05] It's the people who love you.

[00:49:07] Right.

[00:49:07] And, and that's, I think that's what's broken.

[00:49:10] No, that's fair.

[00:49:11] That's fair.

[00:49:12] So how much of it, like, you know, now that Microsoft's going to tax teams and raise the price here a little bit.

[00:49:20] I mean, are you concerned about that as the entry point to communicate with the client?

[00:49:27] Because at some point they may just say, I don't know if I want to continue paying for this to keep jacking the price.

[00:49:32] Yeah.

[00:49:32] We have a desktop app that works really well.

[00:49:35] Obviously, if someone's in a collaboration tool, like we want you to be able to meet them there.

[00:49:40] So we integrate with Slack.

[00:49:41] I mean, if there's another collaboration tool that takes off, we'll integrate with it.

[00:49:44] Fair.

[00:49:45] I think, you know, right now, like teams is still what most people use.

[00:49:48] It's because they're giving it away.

[00:49:51] Exactly.

[00:49:52] Yeah.

[00:49:52] Frankly, I, I'm more interested to see like how, if that spigot stays turned on or if it goes back to free.

[00:50:02] I, so two, two points on that, since we're on the topic, I think they had to start charging because of like the EU lawsuit.

[00:50:09] Like it was kind of like internet explorer and Netscape, but they just fast forwarded it to modern times, right?

[00:50:13] Slack.

[00:50:14] Yeah.

[00:50:15] But then the other thing is Microsoft's just naturally raising their price.

[00:50:18] So we saw, I think it was just this past week that came out because they're having the Microsoft conference in Chicago.

[00:50:24] They're like, Hey, the price is going up at least 5% on the base Microsoft 365.

[00:50:28] Hey, we're, if you're using teams as a voice platform, that's also going up separately.

[00:50:32] Oh, and by the way, if you don't pay us annually, we're also increasing.

[00:50:36] Yeah.

[00:50:37] Like Microsoft's playing a little bit of a stock market game where they're trying to move their prices up.

[00:50:42] Yep.

[00:50:42] I mean, yeah, they're never, it's the whole reason a lot of distribution and stuff exists in the space.

[00:50:47] Like they just don't care about SMB.

[00:50:50] So I don't know.

[00:50:52] It's a good question, but I'm confident there's going to be collaboration tools and, you know, we'll integrate with whatever they are.

[00:50:58] No, it's fair.

[00:50:59] You're going to where your customer is.

[00:51:00] I appreciate that.

[00:51:02] So how do people find out since it's an MSP only solution, which is great, by the way.

[00:51:07] I love that.

[00:51:07] I wish there were more companies out there that were in that lane.

[00:51:10] Fortunately, I think there's like very few that in that category and everybody else is like, Hey, we'll sell to the hot dog cart guy.

[00:51:19] Yeah.

[00:51:20] You know, where do people find out more information about it?

[00:51:24] Talk to somebody about it.

[00:51:26] Figure out how this is priced.

[00:51:27] Like all of that stuff.

[00:51:29] Yeah.

[00:51:30] Getthread.com.

[00:51:32] Getthread.com.

[00:51:33] You find me on LinkedIn.

[00:51:34] I have a pirate hat on Bobby Jacobs.

[00:51:36] Find thread on LinkedIn.

[00:51:38] It's not too hard.

[00:51:39] Now don't go to threads.

[00:51:41] You know, that's the only way you might get lost.

[00:51:43] Make sure you put a get thread in there.

[00:51:45] Otherwise, if you end up on Facebook, I think you'll get back to us pretty quick.

[00:51:50] You know, was it the bald head?

[00:51:52] That's why you did the pirate hat?

[00:51:54] Like what?

[00:51:55] We were pirates before that.

[00:51:56] But I will say it's nicer with the bald head.

[00:51:59] No.

[00:51:59] Hey, I'm with you, man.

[00:52:00] I've been I've been rocking this ever since I had an afro.

[00:52:03] It's been a minute.

[00:52:04] Heck yeah.

[00:52:04] Uh, I really enjoy.

[00:52:07] I mean, you guys spend a lot of time out on the event circuit.

[00:52:10] So I really appreciate that because I've been there with you, you know, kind of thing.

[00:52:14] So yeah.

[00:52:15] Now, love the creativity, by the way.

[00:52:17] Right.

[00:52:18] Like we don't need to make everything bland and boring.

[00:52:20] So right there with you.

[00:52:21] Right.

[00:52:21] Room was, I think it was a sure cost not a small amount of money, but it was something.

[00:52:26] First time I've seen that at an IT industry event for sure.

[00:52:31] Yeah.

[00:52:31] George, thanks.

[00:52:32] Thanks for what you guys do is MSP initiative and all the different things you got your hands

[00:52:36] on supporting the community.

[00:52:37] Thanks for having me on.

[00:52:38] It's awesome.

[00:52:39] Nah, man.

[00:52:39] Appreciate you.

[00:52:40] Appreciate everyone else.

[00:52:41] Check out get thread.com.

[00:52:43] Catch you on the flip side.

[00:52:45] Enjoy the end of your year, man.

[00:52:46] Get some, get some recharging in there and we'll see you back out on the, on the road

[00:52:49] in 2025.

[00:52:51] All right.

[00:52:51] You too, George.

[00:52:52] Got it, brother.

[00:52:53] See ya.