This was something written by the folks over at Citrix to promote their go to assist tool but and is obviously promotional but I thought it was a good reminder for anyone out there not utilizing remote assistance tools to provide their service. If you are still in the truck rolling business the first thing you should do in this economy is figure out how to deliver your support remotely and have your customers be OK with it. Actually they should be thrilled with it because it will reduce the amount of time it takes for them to get their issues resolved. You can still bill your guys out at your normal hourly rate, probably billed in quarter hours, and you will decrease your opps costs by cutting out travel time , cutting out travel costs like gas and parking, and by allowing your team do do more in less time…… that equals higher utilization which equals more money for everyone!

So while these ideas are specific to the go to assist tool we all should be thinking about cutting costs in this economy.

JC

10 Ways to Profit from Remote Support in a Down Economy

A down economy is no time to stick your head in the sand. Instead, it is a time to strategically cut costs and find innovative ways to grow your business.

Here are 10 ways remote support can help you get ahead:

1. Reduce travel costs by making fewer on-site visits.
2. Solve problems faster by enabling reps to access customer computers just as if they were there in person – instead of trying to talk them through the solution over the phone.
3. Increase customer satisfaction, which leads to increased renewal rates, increased referrals and, ultimately, increased revenue.
4. Reduce the number of repeat calls, as customers who watch reps fix their problems learn to do it themselves
5. Increase call-handling capability without adding staff. (This is especially profitable if you charge for service, but still a cost-saver if you don’t.)
6. Streamline management tasks using at-a-glance dashboard and monitoring tools.
7. Save time by getting automated reports sent directly to your inbox.
8. Expand your support capability to more distant geographical areas.
9. Train reps faster and leverage experience using team collaboration and session recording tools.
10. Win more new clients by using remote support as a value in your sales and marketing plans.

As all of the big dogs have done Cisco has recently made their push into the small business managed services market. Cisco defines this market as companies under 100 people. Sure does sound like our sandbox doesn’t it.

If you look at their new small business web site I believe they do a nice job talking to the business owner about solutions rather than support and products. “Secure my business” sure makes more sense to a small business owner than “Security products”.  This is what I mean by the right positioning. Anyone that continues to sell product and support going forward will not succeed in my mind.

Now it is going to take some time to see what kind of traction they are able to get in the small business areas but I can tell you that the 100 million dollar investment they are committed to making sure will give them a leg up over you and I when it comes to getting their word out. I personally believe they will make good inroads with the 100 – 200 user organizations because there is generally at least one IT guy on staff and the Cisco name means something to him. The sub 100 user companies are generally looking for a high level of service and the ability to call the CEO of your organization if something goes wrong, if this remains true it will be a much tougher nut for Cisco to crack.

I suppose in the grand scheme of things this just gives us one more giant to watch as they try to make their entry into the small business market. Perhaps as all of these big dogs show up we will see more strategic acquisitions and all of our organizations will get much higher valuations!

J C

I wanted to take the time and say thank you to everyone that has taken the time to login and check out mspcoach.com.

the response has been overwhelmingly positive and the feedback we have received has been great. If you have not had a chance to login and check it out please do so.

The response from the community has re-energized us to make sure we are producing quality actionable content so you should expect some good things in the coming weeks.

I would also like to point out that we have two other items to celebrate from this past week; the one year anniversary of our Colorado office and Mike’s Birthday.

Having a second operating office with staff in two locations has provided its challenges over the past year but we feel we are through the bumps and in a great position to further our growth.

Mike getting older is just an unavoidable fact of life so make sure to wish him a happy Birthday when you next see him or on the site!

JC

PS – I am also excited that football season started again this week but being a Pats fan I don’t have much to celebrate with Brady being injured today.

So simple yet so cool, Google now allows you to list out locations and in their online spreadsheet and a gadget then places them on a map.

Now I don’t usually get caught up in “cool” technology. I am a big believer in letting the other guy work the bugs out and adopting one step behind the cutting edge – less likely to get cut that way. But as Google takes steps to make their online applications useful to the small businesses around the world I think they hit on something that is powerful for you and me.

We recently started to map out our clients in a Google spreadsheet and it is powerful to see the way they layout around the country or around a particular region. Not only is this cool but it helps our dispatcher as we direct partners around a region to our clients sites to perform work. If implemented properly we should be able to create efficiencies that allow us to drive billable utilization rates beyond the industry norm.

What are you using to track your techs, their routes, their idol time, etc, to drive your utilization rates up? I know it makes sense to create compensation plans that reward utilzation rates, but what are you doing to help your engineers reach these goals?

One of the things we are always working on with our partners around the country is how to make their business and in turn our business more profitable. And I truly believe that tracking traffic patters, knowing locations as you direct a tech from one client to another, having minimums for on-site visits, and empowering your people make this possiable.

Anyway, I am starting to veer off into another subject so check out the Google blog post on their feature and let me know your thoughts:

http://googledocs.blogspot.com/2008/06/featured-gadget-map-it-in-your.html

JC

We spend a lot of time talking about our culture at Everon. We have created a service culture, one where service skills and customer feedback are rewarded ahead of tech skills.

We have spent five years “getting the right people on the bus and the wrong people off the bus” which committing to is not as easy as one might think on the surface. We have been very successful over the years creating a place where everyone likes coming to work the majority of days – we all have the occasional I would rather not be at work moment. So why in the last handful of months (we opened our second operations office in Colorado about 8 months ago) has our culture become one of discontent for some employees?

This is a question I have found myself asking and I believe it was best captured by one of our senior employees that I was talking to: “when things are perceived as fair they become more than that to people, they become good.”

On the surface this did not seem like a particularly important insight, having studied psychology I was familiar with the concept, but it got me to thinking that for the first time in our five year run at Everon things were out of balance.

In our case it was the perception that the Colorado folks did not work as hard as the Boston folks. Now I can tell you that this is not true in anyway especially since I spend most my time in this office, but we were able to figure out where the perception was stemming from by talking to our people and listening to what they had to say. It is always amazing to me what one can learn when they enter a situation with an open mind and from this situation we realize that there are a few things out of wack and we need to make some adjustment to make sure we don’t have people jumping from the bus.

So why am I sharing this experience you may be asking and that is a great question. Partially because it is what’s on my mind today as a wrap up and get ready to hit the sack and partially because we all spend a great deal of time thinking about our people and our culture as we grow our businesses. For those of use focused on a culture of excellence it is important to remember that “fair is good” in the eyes of our employees.

There is almost nothing Mike or I would not do for our people but if we are not constantly listening and keeping thing fair in their eyes we will eventually lose good people and that is something we don’t want to happen if we can avoid it.

JC