In today’s post Paul Azad, the founder of ServiceTree goes over a simple question. 

 

What are we in the Business of People or Technology? 

Sounds like a tricky question, but really, we’re in the business of people. So, for some people that might be a bit confusing, but realistically, if you look at it, companies like Google, Microsoft, and Apple, they’re in the business of technology, that our customers of an MSP are paying for our technology experience. They’re paying for our experience to understand how a business can be helped with technology. 

 

So why don’t I bring this up? 

Well, we’re going to be very careful when we hire people when we bring people to our organization. Because forefront we need them to be people that are people-people. So what I hear is that you are going to gently fine, there are some people that are great work with people and being on the phone and having conversations. And there are others that are going to sit in the back room and head down in a dark room doing tech work. 

 

Why does that matter to us? 

If you’ve got to look at the reason a customer’s calling an MSP is generally because there is an issue or they need something to be either resolved or something to be actioned. We’ve got to be very careful that the people that are on the phone to our customers have got that mindset about customer service, as a core element in what they do and how they do it. With that in mind, we’ve got to be very mindful that when people answer the phone or the communication between our app people and our customers, are all driven around that element, making sure everything is around customer service. 

If you think about it, a service desk, which is the department within your MSP that receives a phone call, the first word is service. Customer service is service. So let’s just take a step back and remove the belief or move the thought that way in the technology business, because we’re not we’re in the technology business, from a people side, which therefore makes us a people company. 

 

Step outside of your business

With all that in mind, we got to be very careful that everything we do is from the perspective of the customer. What I mean by that is step outside of your business and imagine you’re the customer. When you are the customer and you want to reach out for support because something’s not working:

• What is the first thing you want to do? 
• What is the first experience you want to feel? 
• Do you want to feel the experience of an email? 
• Do you want to feel that experience for a text? 

Your answer is going to be no. When we have something that doesn’t work, as a human, it’s a human way that we want to speak to somebody and have that person feel what we feel and take the edge of it. So as I mentioned before, when we hire people, we’ve got to make sure we’ve got people-people in our team. 

 

Understanding what we are

With all the above, we’ve got to ensure that everybody within our team actually understands that we are a people company, we’re in the business of people. We do have technology, and that’s a strong element of what we do. But we’ve got to remind ourselves that it’s all around our people. 

Now, how does that also transfer across to our people in their day-to-day, or what they do? Well, everything we do in an organization overall is around our team. Consequently, that impacts the culture of our organization. So if we have people within our team that fit into our culture, you’ll generally find that the culture will be stronger, and you’ll find that the culture will be one that people want to put into. And it’s the kind of environment that your team members will want to wake up in the morning and come to work. 

Now, I’m not sure about you. But I’ve definitely worked in organizations, where I have not felt that I want to get up and go to work every day. And I’m not saying it’s because I had bad people in that organization. I’m not saying it was because I didn’t enjoy the job. But it wasn’t the feeling that I enjoy going to work every day and the surrounding of my of the rest of my peers and the organization together made me feel like it was a really enjoyable place. 

It’s a really simple thing: In MSP we’re in the business of people. And we should really try to do everything we can to ensure that we’re able to project that to our customers on every ticket.