OnPage guide to stakeholder management for MSPs

How do you handle your clients as an MSP? Your clients are your stakeholders and they are the ones on edge whenever a crisis happens in their fort. They look at MSPs to fix their burning issues and so it’s very important to manage their exceptions.

Stakeholder management enables MSPs to not only think about problems before they happen but also to ensure that during an incident, necessary individuals are apprised of critical incidents. By enabling this critical workflow to occur, teams are able to better understand not only various groups in the company work but also experience a sense of camaraderie and cohesion.
Additionally, by bringing team communications onto one platform and defining clear roles you will see more clarity in the incident resolution process. The addition of the proper Incident Alert Management tool allows you to make sure that the right alerts are taken care off by the right people. Now lets take a look at some tips to manage stakeholders:

3 TIPS FOR EFFECTIVE STAKEHOLDER COMMUNICATIONS

When MSPs moves towards embracing the managed services model, it needs to incorporate the precepts of managing expectations, effective communication and effective execution.

Stakeholder management for MSPs: Tip1 – MANAGING EXPECTATIONS
The MSP needs to focus on setting expectations around: the time it will take for an MSP to call customers back, how long it will take until a tech is on site to fix an issue and what a typical maintenance schedule will look like. MSPs need to map the customer journey and describe what the customer can expect from the MSP from beginning to end.

Stakeholder management for MSPs: Tip2 – EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION
There is often a lot of stumbling with communication. For effective communications, MSPs need to develop ‘the plan’. The plan is really an articulation of the big picture. That is, the plan will explain what happens when an issue arises for the customer. How will the MSP respond? If there is the need for disaster recovery, how will the MSP handle the process from back-ups to getting the client back on-line?

Stakeholder management for MSPs: Tip3 – EFFECTIVE EXECUTION
Effective execution is all about getting the project done in a timely manner. When an MSP is unable to effectively execute, it is because they lack time and manpower to effectively do so. Necessary updates and training don’t get done and MSPs are unable to respond in a timely manner. To achieve effective execution, an MSP needs to either better manage their technology or manpower or both.

To master the art of stakeholder management, download the whitepaper.