Hi, I’m Colin Shantz, CEO of CopperTree Solutions. Today, I will be talking about Managed Service Providers (MSPs).

MSP proactivity is essential for any organization, and it is easy to fall for the wrong ones if you are not careful. The downsides of hiring the wrong MSP are enormous and that’s why I have made this post on five warning signs your MSP is lying to you.

1. Untruthful MSP

Some MSPs are  untruthful. Some MSPs make false or misleading statements to unsuspecting clients. Untruthful MSPs usually overstate their capabilities by hiding important information. They can also make false promises about the services they provide.

An untruthful MSP can harm the reputation of the company, which can create distrust for the company among clients. Customers need to do thorough research before signing with an MSP service. Ensure you get potential MSPs before establishing a relationship to ensure they are trustworthy and capable.

2. Not A Proactive MSP

Some MSPs may only be responsive to requests, rather than proactively identifying and preventing potential issues. One promise an MSP makes is that they will be proactive about your infrastructure. They’re going to be:

• Doing maintenance,
• Improving things in the background,
• Monitoring things,
• Looking out for ways to improve your infrastructure.

In reality, many managed service providers end up only responding to support requests. So, if you only hear from your MSP when you have a problem or they solve support tickets, they’re not a proactive MSP. Rather, they’re more of a reactive and break/fix type company.

When you work with an MSP that is not proactive, the result, for you, means that there’s more risk in your infrastructure. You’re going to have more problems than you should have. A proactive MSP will always be looking for ways to improve the infrastructure. Additionally, they’ll tell you to use technology better and decrease risk within your infrastructure. In contrast, an MSP that’s not proactive will respond to those issues only after they happen.

3. MSP Does No Maintenance

The third sign is they never come on-site to do maintenance. An MSP or IT support company that doesn’t come on-site to perform maintenance shows they need to be more diligent and focus primarily on responding to tickets. A good MSP makes sure they attend to their clients on site to make sure:

• Things work
• Risks are manageable,
• The right technology is in place.

To achieve the level of success listed above, MSPs must:

• Be proactive
• Always make changes to the infrastructure,
• Always improve,
• Upgrade some technology,
• Reconfigure existing tech to have it work better.

IT infrastructure can be compared to a vehicle. If you choose not to do maintenance on your car, they will leave you sitting beside the road one day. Just like a vehicle, computers need regular maintenance, and care.

4. No Regular MSP Strategy Meetings

The third warning sign to look out for is you’re not having regular strategy meetings. So, we need regular meetings to learn about your needs, organization, and technology. In meetings you should talk about the following:

• Where the organization is going,
• What’s coming down the pipe,
• What kind of plans you might have in place,
• Look at the infrastructure to ensure you still have the right solutions in place.

One of the things we do for our clients is having a quarterly vCIO meeting or strategic planning meeting. So, it’s focused on the high-level business conversation that needs to be had. Here, we make sure that we understand what’s:

• happening in our client’s infrastructure,
• happening in our client’s business,
• the challenges you’re facing,
• the things you’re working on,
• and how we can then support that through technology.

If you only hear from your MSP once a year, you don’t have the proper relationship with them.

5. No KPI Reports

The last warning sign to look out for is they don’t give you a key performance indicators report. Part of what you need as a business leader to measure success in IT is key performance indicators (KPIs).

KPIs will allow you to look at your IT and say, “Are we good, or is there some room for improvement?” One of the things CopperTree does for our clients is what we call our IT health score. The IT health score gives you a way to measure the health of your infrastructure. Also, it allows you to flag areas of opportunity or risk within your infrastructure. So we have best practices that we use to measure our client’s IT infrastructure.

Generally, every month, we have a technician go through your infrastructure to make sure we adhere to best practices. This results in a health score that says you’re 97% aligned or you’re 85% aligned. It’s designed to give you a tool to say, “Where are we?” And if you’re 99% aligned with best practices, you know that IT is not something you need to worry about.

Being 93% aligned means that there are suggestions for improvement in your business. These suggestions are designed to make your business more efficient and reduce risk. It’s a useful tool for executives to make better decisions and understand their IT status.

Thanks for joining me today as we discussed the top five warning signs that indicate your managed service provider may not be truthful. If you’d like to learn more, please contact us. We hope you found the information valuable and informative.