Exciting news! I have recently accepted a position at an MSP company! In order to prepare, I've done some brief research on what makes a good MSP from a customer perspective, and have found the following:
Response Time, Communication Skills and Responsiveness
When having issues, does the MSP support get back to you on the task quickly? Or does the customer find themselves left in the dark until the issue is randomly resolved or forgotten?
Cost and Value
Quite self explanatory. As with any service, pricing will always be a major influence, and while pricing is not the immediate concern, value per dollar will be.
Company Bandwidth
Some companies will not want an MSP that is understaffed and possibly unable to provide support due to the higher risk of disruption. Medium to large companies will often prefer to seek a more expensive option and avoid this risk.
Professionalism and Customer Treatment
Another standard but easily forgotten criteria. Communicating with the customer in a polite, reasonable and yet professional way is critical. On top of that, while an MSP will need to enforce certain security criteria, rudely overruling existing staff permissions/systems and making changes without fair warning can disrupt customer workflow and cause frustration. Clear, fair communication and professional execution of procedures is crucial.
Security and Trust
Security is critical for a successful MSP. Should an MSP not enforce certain practices on their customers and themselves, they put each environment they are managing at risk, as if one environment is breached, the MSP itself can potentially be breached, which leaves all the customers vulnerable. A lack of faith in an MSP.
I'm a little anxious but overall excited. This is a great opportunity to accelerate my presence in the IT industry and expand my knowledge and experience, and this blog post will be a good reminder to occasionally return to so I don't get too reckless while working.
