The BrightGauge Blog

Let's start with a couple of questions: Why is customer feedback important to Service providers? How do customer satisfaction scores help you make better business decisions for your customers? From the vantage point of a customer, there have probably never been so many options as there are today when it comes time to pick a business vendor. Not only are there tons of options to choose from, but it’s also easier than ever to get testimonials (good or bad) from others who have worked with a given business. So as a Service Provider, what power do you hold that can help you ensure your customers are happy and therefore spreading positive, word-of-mouth referrals for your business? Enter Customer Satisfaction, or CSAT: a measure of the degree to which a product or service meets the customer’s expectations. Customer Satisfaction is tracked through survey responses and those results can be linked back to 4 main benefits to help keep a pulse on your customers as a Service Provider: Satisfied customers are loyal customers. Because CSAT survey results quickly identify any issues at hand, it also gives service providers a chance to resolve the problem before it blows up. This helps reduce churn which is key for any MSP, large or small. Identify ideal customers based on feedback. As we recently discussed in a podcast with Richard Tubb, not every customer will be a match for your MSP. By tracking survey results, you’ll not only realize which customers are the best match for your business, but you’ll also take note on the types of customers who cause the most pain… and avoid signing that service contract in the first place! Understand which products or services need to be added or improved. If you aren’t constantly asking for feedback, you may not realize that there’s room for an upgrade. Maybe it’s a new report, an additional service, or even a new process to be implemented - whatever the case may be, a survey can often be the fastest way to identify what your customers want. Turn customers into promoters of your brand. When your customers see that you take their opinions seriously, and work hard to keep them happy by addressing problems ASAP, they’re more likely to spread positive word-of-mouth reviews about your MSP! To learn more about CSAT, how to monitor your customer surveys in real time, and keep a single view of all the metrics that run your business, check out our recent integration with SmileBack.

This is the first in a series of “Top Lists” related to BrightGauge where we share more details about some of the recurring questions / comments we receive from our customers regarding different areas of our app. Billing is a very critical part of our overall software and it’s important that our customers have complete transparency when it comes to billing. So with that in mind, here are the Top 5 Billing Questions we wanted to address: how to access the BrightGauge billing portal How can I change the email address that receives invoices? All aspects of managing the billing of your account occur within our billing portal that is hosted by our 3rd party credit card processor. In order to update the email that receives the invoice you simply visit the Billing Portal and update the contact information. For more details please visit: Updating Your Billing Account Contact Info How can I add multiple people to receive the invoice each month? Unfortunately at this time we can only allow one email address per account to receive copies of invoices each month. We have heard some requests from customers about changing this limitation so we are looking to update this in 2016. In the meantime, most of our customers have the email sent to a distribution list that way it’s easy to change on their end. For more details please visit: Updating Your Billing Account Contact Info How can I add a new data source to my account to bring in more data? This is a simple process, you can visit our Billing Portal and under the “Configure” option you’re able to add as many data sources as you would like. We are constantly adding data sources to our list of featured integrations, like our two most recent of QuickBooks and SmileBack, so keep an eye on our Integration Page for updates. For more details please visit: Adding Data Sources To Your Subscription Do you accept other forms of payment besides credit cards? At this time credit cards are the only form of payment we accept for our month to month subscription customers. As you can probably appreciate, with such a small team working on so many different priorities, it would be very difficult to invoice customers and collect money via checks. However, if you would prefer to pre-pay your subscription we do accept check or wire transfer and will extend you a 10% discount for a 12 month prepay. For more details please: Contact Us Where can I find my old invoices? Spoiler alert, like a few of the questions above we are going to send you back to the Billing Portal for this information. All of your invoices (we call them statements) can be found by logging into your Billing Portal under Statements. For more details please visit: Reviewing Invoices / Statements We hope you found this information useful and if you ever have any questions regarding your subscription you can visit Billing Portal Help Docs or simply email us at billing at brightgauge dot com.

What Gets Measured, Gets Managed If there’s one thing all companies have in common, it’s the 6 key areas they should be tracking in order to monitor the health of the business. In business school, you learn that you can’t manage what you don’t measure, and identifying important metrics are the first step in your corporate benchmarking. By identifying, measuring, analyzing and evaluating your programs, processes and procedures, and then implementing solutions for each, you’ll make great strides towards an important part of your growth and development. Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are necessary and useful tools for businesses that want to track and monitor their growth... or identify their areas of weakness and opportunities for growth. A business that has a well-defined mission and vision, clearly defined goals, and strategies for improvement can use KPIs to evaluate and measure its progress. While every business has different priorities, the tools they use to measure their success and progress are often very similar. Generally, businesses are looking to evaluate their performance in the following areas: Finance Customers Sales Marketing Operations Employees In addition to reflecting your business priorities and goals, your KPIs must be quantifiable. Your data doesn’t mean anything if you can’t measure it, analyze it, and use the information to fine tune your strategies. Make sure your KPIs are clearly defined, transparent, measurable, and include a targeted goal for each indicator. Where to Start: Types of KPIs While businesses and organizations tend to organize their Key Performance Indicators around similar themes, the specifics of their data and metrics vary by industry and business. Common KPI models include: Quantitative Indicators, which are measured by a number. Qualitative Indicators, which cannot be measured by a number. These are sophisticated pieces of data, but can be very valuable if you need to get a handle on the “why” as opposed to the how of your questions. Leading Indicators can be used to predict the outcome of your process Lagging Indicators are used after the fact to reflect success or failure of your initiative. Input Indicators measure the resources used during the process, like staff time and cash. Process Indicators gauge the efficiency of the process, and are effective when measuring customer service initiatives, shipment strategies, and training. Output Indicators measure the success or failure of the process and are good KPIs for establishing marketing, sales, and human resources benchmarks. Practical Indicators work within existing company processes or infrastructure, and explore pieces of the corporate puzzle. Directional Indicators evaluate a company’s trend information; are they improving, declining, or maintaining. These benchmarks are often used to evaluate your company’s position in the industry and relative to your most director competitors. Actionable Indicators reflect a company’s commitment to change and course correction, and includes commitment to cultural change, environmental sustainability, or political action. Financial Indicators measure the economic stability, growth, and viability of the business, and are a good place to begin your KPI experiment. With an understanding of what types of measurements are available, and a clear plan for implementing an evaluation tool, you can fine tune your KPIs to measure specific areas of your business. Key Performance Indicators and metrics are not one size fits all, so you’ll need to adjust and fine tune your metrics to get the results you need and accurately reflect your business priorities. Featured Download: For more information on the 6 areas that businesses should evaluate, including finance, customers, sales, marketing, operations and employees, check out our KPIs for MSPs whitepaper: To download KPIs for MSPs, click here, or the image above.

We want you.... to Ask Us Anything! It’s tough to admit that we borrowed a page from the playbook of a politician. But give us a chance - we promise things get Better with BrightGauge! While the last few months have seen us all drowning in the media’s political coverage here in the U.S., our team was taking notes on how the candidates are interacting with their constituents. So when a few Town Hall-style sessions inspired an Edison-worthy lightbulb moment for us, we knew we were going to turn the idea into our most interactive webinar to date. If you’ve been spared from the television drama, a Town Hall meeting is an informal session where attendees are given the opportunity to ask the candidate or leader any burning question that’s on their mind. In this case, we invite our community to Ask Us Anything, and get answers to all of their BrightGauge questions: want to know more about product updates? have a feature request that would make your day? need some advice on the sales process? want to talk about marketing strategy? any questions are welcome here! Our team will be answering as many questions as possible during the live event, and if we run out of time before answering all the questions submitted, we’ll make sure to follow up with an individual email response. Please let us know you’re coming and submit your question now by clicking the image below to RSVP. We’re excited to see you there and who knows, we may even be as entertaining as the folks you see on tv!

This week is a huge milestone for us at BrightGauge, as we celebrate 4 years since going live! We knew we needed to mark this accomplishment with some kind of special feature release, and we figured 4 years of irony was long enough - we should go ahead and take care of the confusion. You see, with a name like BrightGauge people often assume that we should have an actual gauge somewhere in the platform… but to their disbelief, that has never been an option. So (drumroll please), today we’re thrilled to let our community know that we’re living up to our name! After hearing enough of the irony comments, we’ve released the first-ever update to our gauge styles with what is known as the Progress Gauge. The beauty of this new gauge is you’re able to set the minimum and maximum, and then set threshold on the color of the gauge as the number progresses. In the example above we can very easily see that our team of 4 engineers has a goal of 32 billable hours for each day (8 hours each, per day). By navigating to the “Design Settings > Min, Max” you can set the range for the Progress Gauge as shown below: Once you have your Min, Max set up, it’s time to add some Color Thresholds so that the gauge will change color as each threshold is achieved. So in this example, we have anything under 28 hours the gauge should be red: With this new Progress Gauge, you’re not only able to track the progress of your KPI but also introduce colors to make it easy to spot areas that need to be addressed. Here’s a real life example of how we use this at BrightGauge. Last month we announced our new Calculated Metrics feature and we are tracking how many of our customers have used the featured to understand the adoption rate. As of this blog post only 33% of our Advanced Plan customers have used this awesome new feature which means we better get the word out. So what are you waiting for? Get started on your version of the Progress Gauge, and let us know what metrics you’re tracking with it. And P.S. - if you have the Advanced Plan, dive on in! Calculated Metrics opens up a whole new world of possibilities with your metrics… and if it seems overwhelming at first, don’t forget that our Data Customization team is here to help (for free).

Last month, Larry and I attended our first Tigerpaw Partner Conference in Omaha and we walked away very impressed - not only with user participation but also the level of knowledge that was being shared. After 3 days in Omaha we had a few key takeaways that we wanted to share… Larry gets ready to start our day at the booth Tigerpaw One - We were there for the big keynote announcement of Tigerpaw One and could feel the excitement in the room. James Foxall, the CEO of Tigerpaw, did an amazing job sharing all the new benefits of Tigerpaw One. I think the biggest applause came when he announced customers would get all the modules of Tigerpaw included for free for 12 months. That really shows the confidence they have in the product. Tigerpaw Software is Data Rich - We sat in on a few sessions with topics about all the important data that Tigerpaw has inside and what they and others (like us) are doing to expose that data. During the Product Roadmap, James shared the updates they’ve made to their “Matrix Data Mining Tool” which is bringing some very powerful information out of the system and into the hands of the users. We were excited to learn about this because as one of Tigerpaw’s leading Dashboard and Reporting partners we are all about exposing that rich data to the customer and allowing them to make better decisions with their data. Sharing Best Practices - One really cool theme we picked up on was how the Tigerpaw community believes in sharing with each other. Whether it was at the happy hour, in between sessions, or over a meal, we constantly heard Tigerpaw customers talking and sharing ideas. They were willing to open up and share everything they have to offer in order to help one another. Speaking of sharing best practices, I was honored that Tigerpaw asked me to present during one of the breakouts on the topic of “Driving Higher Profits By Understanding Your Customer’s Needs”. Please check out the slide deck below: We were so impressed with the event, the attendees and the location that we are definitely coming back next year to Tigerpaw 2016! Hope to see you there.

We’re thrilled to announce Deep Linking as the latest feature to the BrightGauge platform! With Deep Linking, our users now have the ability to click certain fields which have been hyperlinked to drill directly through to the original datasource (Connectwise, Connectwise API, Labtech, & Autotask). For example, when clicking on a ticket number, users can now link directly back into Connectwise: Deep Linking works in Drilldown (as shown above), List Gauges and Table Gauges We’ve always celebrated our ability to push our customers’ data to them, but now with deep linking we’re excited to give our community access to dive into more detail with just a simple click. Now there’s no more fumbling for separate logins when it’s time to go into an active ticket and email the resource involved or get more detail - just click and go! Have you tested our new deep linking feature yet? Tell us what you think!

As the story goes for most folks in our community, growing your MSP typically starts with a very small team (or even a solo operation), and a big-picture goal of where you want to be in the future. While the technical expertise is often second nature, learning the business side of things often takes a little more time and attention as you learn to navigate through the different stages of business growth. As part of our ongoing Educational Webinar Series, we decided to tackle the topic with special Guest Speaker, Dave Cava, to share his “Stages of MSP Maturity”. As the co-Founder and COO of a New York-based firm that specializes in managed services for alternative investment firms, Dave offers real-life advice on the stages of MSP business maturity. I heard Dave speak in Chicago last month and found the information he shared to be right on point which is why I asked Dave to come speak to our community. During the webinar, you’ll not only learn how to identify which stage your business is currently at but you’ll also walk away with a clear understanding of the steps necessary to get your business to the next stage in your journey. The session will focus on answering questions such as: What needs to happen for a MSP to grow from infancy to healthy, full-blown adulthood? How do your team and your service offering need to evolve to stay on track as you grow? How does a MSP transform from startup to a multimillion-dollar machine? and so much more! To RSVP, click the image below or visit: Stages of MSP Maturity

We recently had the opportunity to host Gary Pica on The BrightGauge Podcast (on iTunes and SoundCloud), and we’re so excited to share his tips and advice with our community! Gary is well-known for being founder of the TruMethods peer group, but prior to that Gary owned one of the fastest-growing MSPs in the States with over 7,000 endpoints under management in a multimillion-dollar practice. As the head of TruMethods, Gary has coached more than 1,500 MSPs over the course of the last 5 years - and we were thrilled that he shared some great industry insights with us. Gary covered a lot of topics during his time with us, discussing everything from major trends in the industry, adding recurring revenue at the right price, the right type of customer to add to your bottom line, learning how to “move up the stack”, leveraging centers of influence to grow your business, and so much more: Episode Highlights: Gary’s intro and background (1:19) View of the overall MSP industry & major trends (3:26) How and Why top providers are different and growing so fast (5:55) Learning to “move up the stack” as a technical person faced with business meetings (10:00) Sales vs. Service: which area do folks struggle with the most? (13:07) Things to do that will make an immediate impact on sales (14:27) More Leads: Developing Centers of Influence and an Inside Sales Process (16:45) Developing a “super power” to set you apart from other vendors (19:03) Which focal point should MSPs start with for growth? (20:32) Should MSPs focus on Owner-led sales or establish a team? (23:19) Gary’s current focus with TruMethods coaching (26:46) How accountability plays a part in successful MSPs (29:43) Pet peeves: what bothers Gary about the industry (32:02) Ideal bottom-line target / realistic goals as a Service Provider (33:40) Q&A: best business book, resources for MSPs, top professional goals, parting advice (37:02) Book mentioned in the episode: Mastering the Rockefeller Habits, by Verne Harnish To get in touch with Gary: trumethods.com info [at] trumethods [dot] com Want to find out more about The BrightGauge Podcast? Check out all the episodes here.

Unless you live under a rock, you’ve probably heard by now that sales and marketing processes are changing. People don’t want to be sold to anymore, instead they want to make informed buying decisions based on their own research from sources they feel are trustworthy. Almost 2 years ago, I started doing some research of my own when it came to marketing. I was working for a company that still focused on the old sales team approach, relying heavily on cold calls while crossing fingers and hoping that someone on the other end of the line would give them the time of day - “smiling and dialing” as we called it. Long story short, I knew how I handled those same types of cold calls from vendors when I received them and I couldn’t believe that any modern company still put most of their faith in this type of system. I decided that I needed to focus on fresh marketing ideas and a company that could ‘see the light’ so to speak, so I set my focus on the Inbound Marketing movement and never looked back. My first focus was getting Inbound Certified, an online course offered by HubSpot, one of the world’s most well-known marketing automation platforms. Inbound Evangelist I’ve learned so much in these last 2 years, and most importantly I’ve had a lot of fun doing it! With the Certification under my belt and also some freelance work experience focusing on content creation, I set out to find a company that valued the inbound methodology. Since joining the BrightGauge team 6 months ago (where we only focus on HubSpot’s inbound methodology), I’ve also completed my HubSpot Certification, started attending local events for the Tech community, and in general spent time explaining what my job is and why I love it to anyone willing to listen. So when I was recently invited to speak at an Inbound Marketing workshop in Miami, I was eager to help teach others about how inbound works and the results we see at BrightGauge. The feedback was great from the workshop attendees and with my new mission to help others who are curious about inbound, I decided to recap my presentation here. speaking at the Rebound with Inbound content marketing workshop at City Tech Miami What is Inbound? Put simply, inbound marketing focuses on producing and distributing valuable content that earns the attention of qualified prospects. It attracts those prospects to your business and keeps them coming back for more information while they are considering their options before ultimately making a purchase - i.e. the process of turning strangers into customers. I should also point out here that inbound can work for any type of company - whether you’re a B2B or B2C (or even a charitable organization). The key is to create quality content that focuses on the challenge your customers face and how your solution can play a role in resolving that challenge, instead of content based solely on your product features. Getting Started with Content At this point, your next question is probably something along the lines of But how do I really know what content to create? or you may be unsure about translating a product/service into the solution it provides… I’m just trying to sell ABC product, not fix their problems… According to HubSpot, the inbound methodology is built on the foundation of The Buyer’s Journey, a process of the 3 different stages that a buyer goes through when comparing their options before finally making a purchase: Awareness Stage: the buyer becomes aware of the problem at hand Consideration Stage: the buyer is focused on comparing all possible solutions for the problem identified Decision stage: the buyer is making a short list of options to consider for a purchase decision It’s important to note here that BrightGauge has been practicing inbound marketing for 3 years and we’re still evolving our content to meet buyers in all stages of the Journey, and do so at the right time in their individual journey. As you’re working on your content, another important factor to keep in mind is your audience. In a B2B environment, traditional (outbound) marketing would dictate that you use conventional attributes such as company size, job title, revenue, etc. as you are framing your audience. But inbound focuses on Buyer Personas to help you create the right content for your audience. HubSpot explains Buyer Personas as “semi-fictional representations of your ideal customer that include demographics, behavior patterns, motivations and goals.” Although at BrightGauge, we take it a step further and also do our best to follow the Jobs To Be Done framework, which tells you to focus on the problem your buyer is trying to solve by asking yourself what is the customer “hiring” us for? (check out this video featuring Harvard Business School’s Clay Christensen with a real-life example of Jobs To Be Done). Once you have content being produced regularly, don’t forget to share it! Of course a blog is the most obvious place to start, but don’t forget about website pages, landing pages, social media, calls to action and emails! You can always go back and reference The Buyer’s Journey for a closer look at what types of content are suited best for each stage. In Real Life: Results with Inbound You’ve read this far and hopefully most of you are on board with the inbound methodology because you understand the evolution of buying and selling in today’s world. But somewhere out there, I know there’s still a nay-sayer who just doesn’t get it. I know your type too well… so let’s get down to the heart of the matter and talk about the real results we’ve seen at BrightGauge. As reported by HubSpot, within the first year of adopting the inbound methodology, BrightGauge increased our customer count by 87%, at the same time that we increased revenue by 152%, and even managed to decrease our monthly attrition rate by 55%. Those are pretty incredible numbers but let’s also look at some of our most recent stats, comparing August 2014 to August 2015: As you can see, I’m not promoting inbound only because I’m partial to BrightGauge... these are facts from our data and proves that the methodology provides incredible results for a one-year period! And what about the big, red font showing a decrease in landing page conversions? That drop is to be somewhat expected, based on the significantly higher volume of visits to our site - but of course it also gives us something to focus on improving even more in the near future. These days, BrightGauge is thrilled to report that we have over 4,000 users found in 750+ cities across 5 continents… and we’re still growing (Inbound works)! Getting started with Inbound I know it can seem like an overwhelming task to launch a completely new marketing strategy, but it’s ok to start small. When BrightGauge first got started with inbound, they focused on 1 - 2 blog posts per week, some social posting and a couple of landing pages. Our founders, Brian and Eric Dosal, realized that something was working, but they weren’t sure exactly what. That’s where I came in! These days, we’re blogging 3 times every week, with a heavy focus on social sharing, we host a free educational (non-sales pitch) webinar once a month, emails are sent regularly based on list segmentations, we have several free white papers, webinars and eBooks on our website, and we also recently launched a podcast. So, we’re constantly producing fresh content, tracking our results (we’re a data company, after all), and being patient - it takes people time to turn into customers. My last piece of advice, as told to the audience at that workshop? Put the people first. Meaning that, yes, marketing is a numbers game and there are always statistics to analyze… but if you focus on creating valuable content that helps your audience learn or make informed decisions, and produce that content on a regular basis then you’ll see success in inbound. And remember, Inbound marketing is a marathon, not a sprint! A few free resources if you’re just getting started: These are by no means the only awesome, free resources out there, but I’ve used these before and found them to work well… MailChimp: an email marketing solution that’s free for up to 2,000 subscribers Google Analytics: for insights on how visitors find and use your site HootSuite: a social media management dashboard, free for up to 3 platforms Canva: a web-based graphic design tool And don’t forget to subscribe to the HubSpot blog, they offer fantastic insights to help you continually improve your inbound strategies! Have a question, suggestion, or want to chat about inbound marketing? I can be reached at amccluney [at] brightgauge [dot] com or follow me at @AjMcCluney