Some amount of stress will typically come along with owning any type of business. But there’s no reason running your business has to keep you totally stressed out most of the time.
Many times, it’s the time crunch of “too much to do and not enough time to do it all” that can make managing an IT business a stressful experience. Business owners race to keep up and may not be ready to invest in hiring more staff just yet. So instead, they struggle through their days wondering if there is a better way.
Are you looking to make your business easier to manage? Take a look at the details of how your business processes flow. Even a few small improvements in your processes like invoicing, internal IT functions and appointment setting can add up to more time in your day and fewer customer headaches.
We provide several ways you can streamline your days and enjoy more of your nights stress-free.
Encourage Self-Service
Do you find that you and your team do things that customers could do for themselves? Let’s take booking an IT visit for example.
If you still handle appointment booking by email or phone, you can end up with a process that includes a lot of back and forth as you confirm a date, send appointment information, etc. The process can take days.
If you enable customers to book appointments themselves on your website, you streamline the process and eliminate all that time spent doing something that takes a customer a minute or two online.
94% of surveyed consumers said they’d be more likely to choose a service provider that offered an online booking option.
Using a booking app like Syncro’s built-in booking module makes the process easy and integrated with your other MSP tasks. There’s no more lengthy back and forth, you simply get notified when a customer books a new appointment.
Revisit Your Ticketing Process
The ticketing process is one of the “bread and butter” activities of an IT business. It’s the process that your technicians work with the most, so if it’s messy and inefficient, it can have a widespread impact.
Take a look at any ticketing problems that your team may have run into, such as:
- Tickets getting lost
- Tickets not being closed when the work is done
- Search not bringing up all the tickets it should
- Confusion on who is handling which ticket
- Duplicate tickets for the same project
Review the process from start to finish with an eye towards automation and simplicity.
Make Your Billing Process More Comprehensive
How many calls or emails do you get a month because someone is confused about an invoice. How many go unpaid that you need to follow up on simply because it wasn’t clear to the recipient when they needed to pay?
If you have a confusing billing process or invoices that are hard to understand, then you’ll end up spending additional administrative time that increases the total cost of acquisition for that sale.
Put together a list of invoice issues that customers have trouble with. Do you have something that is a repeat problem, like the due date not being clear?
Take your customer feedback and use that to make your billing process more comprehensive so you have fewer instances of confusion. This means less time spent having to clarify and follow up.
Have a Delegation Plan in Place
It doesn’t need to be a five-alarm fire when you leave unexpectedly because you have to explain to everyone what to do. You can save yourself the stress and give yourself permission to have an afternoon off every once in a while if you put a delegation plan in place.
This means cross-training your team ahead of time on duties that you generally handle. Give them time to train on these tasks so the first time they do them, isn’t during an emergency.
Work out a chain of command, so if you and your #2 were both pulled out on a service call, you have someone that’s already trained ready to step in.
Taking the time to do this when there’s no emergency, is a lifesaver when one does happen.
Don’t Skip Documentation
When things get busy, it’s easy for technicians to “forget” to do the proper documentation of a service call. There’s no instant gratification from having to document everything, so it can often get put off.
Then, when that same customer calls again, everyone is left scrambling because their service record is missing some important information.
Put a required documentation process in place and make it easy for your technicians to follow by putting it in the cloud instead of having it done manually. For example, offer multiple-choice selections where possible to save time.
Using an online form format also makes it easier for them to fill out from any device, such as a tablet before they leave the client location when everything is fresh in their mind.
Make sure to enforce the process, which will save everyone a lot of stress later when that information is needed.
Save Time With a PSA/RMM Tool That Automates Your Business
Syncro has powerful tools that integrate to automate your entire MSP business from remote monitoring and management to customer support to employee documentation.
Start your free trial today.
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