Many companies now use managed IT service providers to handle their IT tasks, either as an outsourced team or as part of their own staff. Several advantages can be found in the model. See our article about outsourcing vs. having all IT done in-house for more information.
How do you pick the right company? How can you stay sure of yourself month after month, year after year?
Answer: Performance measures that are clear and easy to understand.
Before you decide to use their managed IT provider, they should be able to show you solid proof of how well they met different goals. After they start working for your business, you should also be kept up to date on the important performance metrics.
Computer One is our only choice, but here are the numbers we keep track of every day for each client and the whole company:
Respect for SLA’s
Contents
This overarching category has both broad statistics and specific measurements that apply to our clients. This category includes things like the number of unresolved support tickets at any given time, how quickly we respond to support requests, how soon we start working on them, and how long it takes to resolve them. It also keeps track of how our organization (Level 1 to Level 2) handles them. We also keep track of how quickly we answer calls and what kinds of support requests we solve. This helps us find problems that keep coming up. We also keep track of how long our clients’ networks are up. The quality of service, like remote desktops and VoIP, is also checked on our networks.
Non-conformances
We have a certificate from ISO 9001: Quality Management Systems. We keep our certification up-to-date by keeping track of times when processes aren’t followed and performance levels aren’t met. We look at non-conformances during reviews. We tell any team member or person who missed a step what to do. We fix any process that wasn’t done right and still doesn’t work.
Customer satisfaction
Providing great customer service is something providers should always be able to demonstrate. The Net Promoter Score is used around the world as a measure of how happy customers are. This method is easy to understand because it is clear and simple.
In a nutshell, it works like this:
We ask the people who work for our clients how likely they are to tell others about us based on the quality of the service they got from us. Those with a score of 9 or 10 are called Promoters. They think that the service they got was excellent. People who get 7 or 8 out of 10 are neutral. They are happy, but they won’t tell a friend, coworker, or colleague about us. People who score between 0 and 6 are detractors. They might not like Computer One if they had the chance.
This formula is used to figure out the NPS.
The Net Promoter Score (NPS) represents the number of Promoters and Detractors for your company.
Your NPS would be 98 if you had 99% promoters and 1% detractors.
Neutrals affect your score as a whole. In percentage points, they are taken off the table. You can only get 80 points if 20% of the people who answer are neutral (rating you a 7- or 8-out of 10)
On a scale from -100 (100% detractors) to +1100 (100% promoters), your final NPS score is found.
How do you determine a good Net Promoter Score?
According to technical terms, a score higher than 0 means more people like or dislike your work. However, these are not good scores. You’ll see scores for hundreds of companies between -10 and +10. This just means that 10% of people support the idea and 10% are against it. It is not a good way to measure how happy customers are.
Because it is so hard to keep a score this high, Computer One always has a score above +70 in the World-class zone. Even if only 1 in 100 people say they don’t like you, that could drop your score below +70, depending on how high your neutral score is.
If you want service and satisfaction on a world-class level, your Managed IT Provider should show you their NPS score. It should be figured out from a distance.
The final word…
You might want to reevaluate the value you are receiving from your managed service provider if they don’t give you their SLA or NPS metrics upon request and aren’t reporting them to me every month. You might find a more qualified MSP waiting to receive your call.