The BrightGauge Blog

When it comes to earning your client's business time and time again, the key is to build a relationship based on trust and transparency. Being proactive about showing your client the value you bring to the table rather than waiting for them to ask what you've been up to is a great way to earn a credible reputation. Our favorite way to practice this type of transparency is by getting in the habit of sending consistent and frequent client reports. Client reports show all of the "behind-the-scenes" work managed service provider (MSP) is working on that the client may not otherwise have visibility into. They essentially show the good, the bad, and the ugly and leave nothing to interpretation. One of the most powerful types of reports is the Quarterly Business Review (or QBR). You may always refer to this as a Business Review, but it's an in-depth meeting with a client where you may highlight the value of your services, review and reset goals, and create a strategy for moving forward. This month, we're sharing a comprehensive QBR Report template that you can recreate yourself and send off to your clients at whatever cadence makes the most sense for your relationship. This QBR Report includes ticket statistics, asset management details, and customer satisfaction metrics. Depending on what your client cares most about seeing, you could also add in gauges from your BDR, security, finance, or other tools. Quarterly Business Review Report - view here With BrightGauge, it's simple to create and send a report automatically on the date and time you choose. And by mapping your clients, you can save this report template and filter and share for specific clients when you're ready to send off (versus creating a new version of the report each time). This QBR Report can bring a lot of value to your clients and serve as a perfect conversation driver for talking through your business relationship. To recreate these dashboards for your own MSP, check out the links below: Public view link - Quarterly Business Review Report Buildout Key Instructions for Quarterly Business Review Report Please feel free to reach out to success@brightgauge.com with any questions you have!

This month's dashboard is all about the data you share with your executives. The MSP Overview dashboard is a typical board to share with your CEO or executive team in general. We were inspired by Kevin Nincehelser, VP of Managed Services at Premier One, an IT services company based in Kansas. With nearly 30 years of professional services under their belt, Kevin and the Premier One team are well-versed in the data points that a CEO of an MSP would take interest in. Because of how valuable the MSP Overview board has been, Kevin is happy to share his insights with other MSPs who may want to recreate it for their use. MSP Overview Dashboard - view here The MSP Overview dashboard gives a high-level view of the following important key performance indicators (KPIs): Number of endpoints and users managed Financial KPIs such as Profit Margin Percentage Revenue and cost breakdown for different services (such as project vs cloud vs product) Turning Point Gauge: shows when recurring revenue starts to exceed cost of goods sold and expenses Average Response and Resolution Time trends over the last 6 months This type of dashboard gives executives a quick, but thorough overview of KPIs that have an impact on the bottom line and can be used as a good jumping off point for aligning on future strategies and goals. To recreate these dashboards for your own teams, check out the links below: Public view link - MSP Overview Dashboard Buildout Key Instructions for MSP Overview Dashboard Please feel free to reach out to success@brightgauge.com with any questions you have!

This month, we're stepping away from our regular dashboard of the month to share this awesome Engineer Audit Monthly Report. Luckily, your BrightGauge is flexible in that any of the gauges you see here can also be added to a dashboard, or converted to a number gauge and used to track your goals. All KPIs displayed: Hours Billable vs Total Member Scorecard - Last 6 Months Hours by Work Type Time Rounding CSAT 6 Months What is in the report On a recent account review call with our partners Cygnus Systems, I was amazed by some of the time tracking gauges their CEO Craig Isaacs shared. For this monthly report, we're given a summary of the team's performance over the last 6 months, and whether each metric is trending upwards or downwards. We especially love this Time Rounding gauge that highlights when team members might be over- or under-rounding for their timesheets, a common hallmark of those who don't enter their hours in a timely manner. This translates to keeping an eye on upping your Billable % for each team member. While it's a simple amount of gauges, this report gets the job done. When it comes to putting the numbers in front of your team, less (and what's actionable), is always more! How to recreate in your BrightGauge First, view the report here. Follow these modules here to recreate this report, or build any of the gauges found here, back in your BrightGauge account: Report Buildout Key For more examples of how BrightGauge works, check out our Templates as well as our Monthly User Showcase Webinars.

Among the many things they do right, Network Doctor, an MSP firm based out of the Northern US, excels at keeping their engineers engaged and always focused on where they can help out next. Through their BrightGauge dashboards, each is able to cover a little self-triaging while seeing where their metrics line up for the day. We recently hosted a webinar with our longtime partners to go over how they use their dashboards to keep their techs motivated while on top of the endless ticket queues. Watch the webinar here: Pushing for Accountability & Auditing your Data with Network Doctor. For the dashboard featured, Network Doctor partner David Birk shared how they create individual dashboards for each team member. Color thresholds are then set to show the split of what the technician has on their plate, stats from the previous week, and where there is room for them to pick up "In-Progressable" tickets (tickets that aren't waiting on the customer and may be progressed along). Engineer Dashboard - public view link Engineer Dashboard key - public link with instructions on how to rebuild in your BrightGauge KPIs displayed - filtered for each technician: Your Hr./Ticket Ratio - Last 30 Days Team Weekly Average (2-Week Lookback) Assigned Today Completed Today Worked On Today Your Ticket Stats For LAST Week (Member Board) Your Ticket Stats For THIS Week (Member Board) Hours Entered Today Past Due Items In-Progressable - Today's Ratio In Progress Currently In-Progressable Tickets Your "New to Completed" Stats (HD Board Tickets Only) Your Surveys This Year Your 30-Day Utilization Average Survey Leaderboard Your Hours By Client This type of dashboard has provided the Network Doctor team with a high level of visibility and transparency that has helped keep productivity consistent, even during the COVID-19 pandemic. To recreate these dashboards for your own teams, check out the links below: Public view link - Engineer-filtered Dashboard Buildout Key Instructions Please feel free to reach out to success@brightgauge.com with any questions you have!

As we continue to forge ahead in 2020 and understand how COVID-19 has impacted our businesses, it is time to plan for recovery. Whether you have experienced significant changes or you’ve been operating like normal, we all need to think about what comes next. Join Paul Dippell, CEO of Service Leadership, Inc., for the Rapid Recovery Webinar Series, hosted by ConnectWise. In the three-part series, Paul will offer advice on maximizing profits, improving customer retention, and generating new business. Read on for more details and to register for the events. Determining Your Financial Situation and Protecting Profitability June 5, 2020; 1:00-2:00pm EST In the first of the Rapid Recovery Webinar Series with Paul Dippell, we’ll discuss how to clearly understand your financial health and maximize profits during and post-COVID. Register now: https://www.connectwise.com/resources/inside-the-industry/webinar-predicting-profitability Retaining and Risk-Managing Your Existing Customers June 15, 2020; 2:00-3:00pm EST In this episode, Paul Dippell will share advice on how to prevent customer churn and sustained revenue loss by doubling down on customer retention and risk management. Register now: https://www.connectwise.com/resources/inside-the-industry/webinar-retaining-customers Selling into the Storm – New Business Generation in a Downturn June 30, 2020; 1:00-2:00pm EST In the third and final installment of the Rapid Recovery Webinar Series, the conversation will turn to how solution providers can tackle the increased challenge of driving sales during this period of uncertainty. Register now: https://www.connectwise.com/resources/inside-the-industry/webinar-selling-in-economic-downturn

We get asked quite a bit, "Which metrics are the right ones for me to measure for my team and business?". A lot of factors play into this. Consider the size of your team, customer communication, revenue, products and services provided, and markets served to name a few. Take stock of where you stand amongst these, plus a multitude of other factors. This is where you are in your journey. You may realize that your success isn't dependent on the age of your business but rather how mature, or developed each of these core areas are. That's a great start! From here, it's all about knowing what to act on, and setting in place the right intelligence gathering. To demystify this process, join industry expert Eric Hoffmaster for our User Showcase webinar: Making Sense of your Journey Towards Operational Maturity, taking place on May 11th, at 9:30 am PST/ 12:30 pm EST. We'll cover: Key Business Stages What every business should evaluate Evolving your metrics Working towards what's actionable Painting everything green RSVP to our live webinar or to receive a recording: http://info.brightgauge.com/en/wb-msp-maturity

As the world shifts to remote work, managers are having to learn new ways to keep their teams motivated and on task. Without the ability to pop over to someone’s desk or have a passing conversation in the hallway, it seems to be a bit more challenging to know what your technicians are working on. This is where dashboards can have a really profound impact. Business intelligence dashboards act as a single source of truth and paint an accurate picture of what’s going on at any given moment. This month, we’re showing you two BrightGauge dashboards that are daily must-haves for working with your remote team. Managing to Zero dashboard *View this sample Managing to Zero dashboard here The point of this dashboard is to manage all metrics to zero within a specific time frame. So, the goal can be to have each metric on the dashboard hit 0 by the end of the day or week. In BrightGauge, you can filter this dashboard for each specific technician and share with them, that way everyone is on the same page and knows what they need to work towards. Here’s a breakdown of the key performance indicators (KPIs) displayed in the Managing to Zero dashboard: High Priority - A count of any currently open high priority tickets. Managing this number to zero ensures that all high priority items are handled in a timely fashion. Unassigned - A count of all currently open tickets that have no technician assigned. Keep an eye on this metric so that all of your customer’s issues and requests are not overlooked. Offline Servers - With your customers relying heavily on their technology during this time, making sure you maintain and manage the amount of servers that are going offline is more essential than ever. New - A count of all tickets that are still in a "New" status. Often this is an indicator that there has not been progress made on these tickets. Highlighting this item for your team should help keep them on track. Breaching Response SLA - This gauge will show any tickets that are within 60 minutes of breaching their response SLA. Managing this metric allows you to stay true to the expectations you have committed to with your customer base. Stale - A count of all tickets that have not been updated in at least 7 days. Make sure you keep this number to zero, so that none of your customer's requests fall through the cracks. Scheduled Today - A focus on tickets that are currently open and scheduled for today. Staying on top of these tickets should also aid in keeping your techs on task. Breaching Resolution SLA - This gauge will show any tickets that are within 60 minutes of breaching their resolution SLA. Managing this metric allows you to stay true to the expectations you have committed to with your customer base. Machines on EOL OS - Ensuring that your customers are on a reliable OS is extremely essential during the new work-from-home environment we are in. Reliable technology will allow them to operate efficiently and in turn increase your value as a partner. Managing to Green dashboard *View this sample Manage to Green dashboard here Another essential, this dashboard gives a view of the current state of affairs. The goal is to have your KPIs consistently within a ‘green threshold’, which indicates that you are on the right track. Metrics that turn to red show areas where you may be falling behind, allowing you to respond quickly and course correct. With BrightGauge, you have the ability to set thresholds based on numbers that you’ve deemed indicative of a problem. When that benchmark is crossed, your gauge will change colors, making it very easy to identify a problem and act on it immediately. In this sample dashboard, we’ve chosen KPIs with arbitrary goals and thresholds set to them just to highlight the idea behind the Manage to Green dashboard. When creating this dashboard for your use, make sure to choose goals and thresholds that match your internal standards. Here are our examples: Average Time to Response (mins) - Keeping your response time low and within an acceptable threshold allows you to provide an exceptional service to your customer base. Make sure this metric fits within internal expectations. CSAT Score - A quick glance at your customer's sentiment towards you. Customer retention is key during these times. Average Time to Resolution (hrs) - Keeping your resolution time low and within an acceptable threshold allows you to provide an exceptional service to your customer base. Make sure this metric fits within internal expectations. % Met Response SLA - A percentage of tickets that have met their response SLA compared to all of the tickets that have been worked that week. Use this gauge to make sure your team is meeting the commitments you have made to your customers. Kill Rate % - This is a quick glance into your team's efficiency. Calculated by taking tickets closed divided by tickets opened, this metric should always stay at 100% or higher. 100% means you have closed as many tickets as have been opened this week. Anything below 100% indicates that there may be some lingering tickets. % Met Resolution SLA - A percentage of tickets that have met their response SLA compared to all of the tickets that have been worked that week. Use this gauge to make sure your team is meeting the commitments you have made to your customers. Billable Utilization % - This calculates the amount of billable time your team has submitted versus their total time submitted. % Tech Time Fulfilled Yesterday - A view of the time submitted yesterday versus their daily capacity set within your PSA. If this number ever falls below 100%, some of your technicians are not putting all of the time allotted in their daily capacity. % Gross Margin - A key metric in determining the overall profitability of your business offerings. The Manage to Zero and Manage to Green dashboards are easy to implement and share and can make a big difference in your team’s productivity and efficiency each week. Having these two rules (‘no red’ and ‘get to 0’) is a quick solution to getting everyone on the same page. To recreate these dashboards for your own teams, check out the links below: Link Manage to Zero dashboard Link to Manage to Zero Recreation Key Link to Manage to Green dashboard Link to Manage to Green Recreation Key Please feel free to reach out to success@brightgauge.com with any questions you have!

We say this over and over - when it comes to building long-term client relationships, transparency is key. You need to show your client the value that you’re bringing to their business so that they understand what their investment is worth and are never left to question why they are paying you. A great way to do this is by sending consistent reports to key stakeholders. Another option made possible by BrightGauge is to share a real-time dashboard with your client. That’s exactly what Peter Kardel, co-founder of Clever Ducks, puts into practice. Clever Ducks is an MSP out of San Luis Obispo, California, focused on serving clients who see tech as a strategic weapon, or something central to their success. Their clients want to cut costs with IT, not on IT. As part of their client retention strategy, Peter and team share a Client Success Overview dashboard that allows them to manage relationships in a proactive way. For example, when it comes to a planning and QBR process, a lifecycle of client’s hardware and software all up and down the stack is established. That way, Clever Ducks can proactively replace gear once it reaches the end of its lifecycle rather than waiting for that equipment to fail. “Something like this makes our operations much less reactive and it’s a much better outcome for the client because, as we all know, downtime is expensive,” says Peter. Peter has found that setting color-coded thresholds on the Client Success Overview dashboard makes the data more compelling and more likely for a client to take notice. “People just know that green is go, yellow means you may want to hit the brakes, and red is bad,” says Peter. “After a while, a client looks at a dashboard, sees red, and wants to take immediate action. It’s an amazing way to support their success and help them prioritize.” In general, the Client Success Overview is a good way to ensure that everyone is on the same page. *View this sample Client Success Overview Dashboard here Included is the client’s ticket trend, which is a nice visual way to tell a story of what’s going on without hiding anything. It provides an opportunity to look at trends and understand what changes need to be made to influence the direction of that trend. With this dashboard, Peter and team avoid bogging clients down with nitty gritty details. Instead, they get right to the point of showing clients that their business is safe and can show where there are opportunities to take advantage of in order to be successful. An interesting KPI they include in the overview is how the clients are rating Clever Ducks. The dashboard is often being seen by C-suites, so these CSAT scores show how team members are (or are not) happy with Clever Ducks’ service. It’s a nice boost for that C-suite person to know that their people are confident in their technology. These days, your workforce won’t tolerate IT that’s confused or unreliable, so having confidence in leadership is becoming ever more important. Finally, a Client Success Overview dashboard makes meeting with clients way more efficient. Instead of bringing a stale report that was printed out before the account manager meets with a client, Peter and team can literally open the dashboard in front of the client during the meeting and look at real-time information, allowing them to get down to business and problem-solving right away. For instances when team meetings are not occurring face-to-face, clients still have access to their important data, day or night. Check out the links below to replicate this type of dashboard for your own clients. Link to Client Success Overview Dashboard Link to Dashboard Recreation Key Please feel free to reach out to success@brightgauge.com with any questions you have!

Have you ever been a part of a professional community or peer group or considered joining one? In such groups, many business leaders turn to their peers for advice on how to grow, both professionally and personally. You’ve likely heard of The IT Nation, ConnectWise’s professional community, but maybe are not familiar with the various events offered by The IT Nation and how they may be useful to you. Here, we’ll introduce you to The IT Nation and all that it encompasses, as well as guidance on which events may be best suited to your specific needs. What is The IT Nation? What does being a member of The IT Nation actually mean? Who’s included in The IT Nation? What’s the difference between The IT Nation and IT Nation Connect? The IT Nation is a global community of technology professionals working to push each other and the industry to new heights. By working collaboratively, sharing best practices, and listening to thought leaders, members can make this industry better and stronger. Members of The IT Nation live all around the world and have different business models and technology stacks to run their companies. The IT Nation is open to any technology solution provider, whether they use ConnectWise solutions or not. By fostering a sense of ‘co-opetition’, all can learn from and alongside each other to navigate the ever-change technology landscape. So how do you get involved in The IT Nation? With events throughout the year and advice from the community available on demand, there are several ways to maximize your experience within The IT Nation. Listen WHO THIS IS FOR: Anybody looking to gain more business insights! With the Stories from The IT Nation podcast series, you’ll hear members of The IT Nation community share advice based on personal experiences running their businesses. Learn how to attract top talent to your organization (including how to appeal to the millennial crowd), identify when it’s time to fire customers, stay relevant to your customers and more. Share WHO THIS IS FOR: ConnectWise partners who want to learn to use the products even better. IT Nation Share user groups are regional, one-day product trainings offered free of charge to ConnectWise partners. Meet other technology providers in your area and get answers directly from ConnectWise product experts on to help you learn how to better use your ConnectWise solutions. Explore WHO THIS IS FOR: ConnectWise partners seeking deeper, in-depth training on all products. Need more than one day of product training? Want training on the full ConnectWise platform, including BrightGauge, Continuum, and IT Boost? Join us in Orlando this summer for IT Nation Explore. This annual three-day product conference will feature over 100 breakout sessions, labs, and panels so every member of your organization can get the training they need to increase efficiency in their daily operations. Connect WHO THIS IS FOR: Business leaders wanting to make their organizations better and stronger. For business owners and leaders who need to know what’s coming next in the industry—and how to prepare their business for the changes that lie ahead—IT Nation Connect offers thought leadership and business building content over three days. Learn from experts in the industry on how to navigate M&A conversations, cybersecurity challenges, how to find and retain top talent, and more. As the largest and longest-running IT conference in the channel, it’s a can’t-miss event every year. This year’s event takes place in Orlando November 11-13. Evolve WHO THIS IS FOR: Specifically for members who have applied and been accepted who want to have honest conversations about work and building legacy. At IT Nation Evolve, business owners can share experiences, engage with peers, and get the resources they need to build their legacy. Members attend events each quarter where they meet with their peers and share progress—as well as hold each other accountable to work toward personal and professional goals. Want to be in the loop on everything that’s happening in The IT Nation? Stay connected through social media to get updates on our events, podcast opportunities, and more.

In 1996, wife-and-husband duo Kelly and Nate Freeman realized their vision of opening up an IT shop in Clearwater, Florida. It started as a small MSP but really began picking up around 2002. Today, Network People is an MSP+, with 15 employees and a great internal system, providing IT and security services to close to 300 clients. A BrightGauge partner for several years now, the tool is a big part of their daily operations. We spoke to Joe Somerville, Integrator + Director of Operational Development to learn more. How Network People got its start Network People has always had a mission to deliver the best tech services in the Tampa Bay area, and one of the ways they’ve done that is by spending a lot of time with their clients. Maintaining a strict customer-focused attitude is something they believe has set them apart from many other MSPs in the industry. “It’s important to us to go above and beyond for our clients, regardless of our agreement level,” says Joe. “That way, mom and pop shops are being treated the exact same way as our larger corporate companies.” This level of care has allowed Network People to grow and build a reputation as a trusted partner for SMBs in the municipalities, health practices, law, and architectural sectors, amongst others. When it comes to taking on new clients, the Network People team gravitate towards companies that are community-driven, have a good culture, and are operating calmly and in an organized manner. Making sure the client relationship is one that jives has allowed Network People to really focus on that personal touch and spend more time with clients. “Doing the right thing is a top priority for us,” says Joe. “We’re spending time, effort, and money on constantly developing, getting things built to a level we’re happy with, and figuring out where we can consistently improve for the benefit of our clients.” As an example, Joe and team discovered that they had clients who weren’t monitoring their backups correctly, consequently putting their companies and sites at risk. Undoubtedly, an issue like this requires the right tools in place to properly take action and be proactive. Which is exactly where a tool like BrightGauge comes into play. Becoming a BrightGauge partner After attending an HTG meeting (now known as IT Nation Evolve), the owner and president of Network People brought BrightGauge into their stack of tools, seeing value in being able to get to data quickly and automate processes. Since then, BrightGauge has been a key player in daily operations at Network People. “BrightGauge is the best way to see data,” says Joe. “It’s allowed us to do what we want in an efficient way with our clients and lets us put data in front of our clients when we’re talking to them.” Joe estimates that he and his team use BrightGauge dashboards for 3 hours a day, every single day. “I can’t even imagine running our business without this,” says Joe. In addition to using the dashboard and reporting features, Joe says that BrightGauge support is some of the best he’s experienced, furthering the value of the tool even more. What BrightGauge has helped the Network People team accomplish When it comes to monitoring client’s backups, BrightGauge helps in intelligence gathering and due diligence, which has aided in their client retention efforts. More than that, BrightGauge dashboards are the primary way the Network People team share data with clients. “We deliver VCIO meetings through BrightGauge dashboards,” says Joe. “And part of our onboarding process is building out a client dashboard specific to that client.” We love this part of Network People’s onboarding and the tips they gave for bringing data to clients: - They assign their clients as a viewer to their own client dashboard - They use a templated dashboard and add a filter for that client, so that the whole process takes 3-4 minutes to set up - During onboarding, they hold a 10-15 minute training, taking clients through their gauges, what the data should mean to them, what they should keep an eye on, and in what instances they should reach out to Network People for more support/clarity Genius! “Anytime we get clients to understand what we do and why we do it, we strengthen the partnership and build a lot of legitimacy into what we do on a monthly basis,” says Joe. “We’re protecting them; we’re sharing numbers open and honestly; and we’re only able to do this because of custom datasets in BrightGauge.” As security issues become more serious and our industry becomes more vulnerable, Joe is proud that Network People still has a client-first focus and that they are spending time figuring out how to provide enough service to keep their clients secure, no matter their budget. “We are always taking care to work with a client’s environment so we fit into them instead of them fitting into us,” says Joe. “It may not be the most profitable mentality, but it is so important to us.” That’s definitely something to admire. We’re proud to have you as a partner, Network People! Most-used datasources: ConnectWise Manage and Automate, and Liongard Roar (Joe says he is most excited about building this out) Top KPIs: Tickets Per Engineer; SLA Per Ticket; Billable Time Goals; CSAT; Department Hourly Goals Notable Dashboards: Centralized Services; Service Manager Review; Client Board; Finance Board; CSAT Board; Inventory Board