MSP Answers

I love how the human race is so adaptable. It is probably the reason we are still on the planet today. One of those areas of adaptability is in the sayings we have created to suit a range of different situations. If we have a group of people together…

I was listening to a talk from a Greens Senator recently. She made some good points. She said that we have been too quick to forget about our rail network and we should further investigate the use of rail instead of road trains. I agreed. She said th…

Opportunity. Sometimes it only knocks once. You have to be ready to open the door when it does. I spoke with a friend of mine recently who works in the banking industry. He visited a branch and they had a small box called the ‘opportunity box&#…

Price to the market I went to my local butcher last week to buy two of his famous ‘family pies’. These are just like a good old-fashioned Aussie meat pie – but big enough to feed a small family. We have a medium-sized family so I ne…

Learning from Masterchef I was a little desperate for entertainment tonight. I wouldn’t normally admit it but it is all for a good cause. I watched MasterChef with the family. Normally reality shows are about as enjoyable as fingernails on a ch…

Go the extra step – use their name In my last article I wrote about an example of terrible customer service. I hate to focus too much on the negative so I want to give you an example of exemplary customer service. I was in China recently and I …

The real world is different to a textbook I almost feel silly writing an article about customer service. It seems obvious to me that every business is aware of how important it is to deliver exceptional customer service. Every business textbook and e…

Be careful what message you send I walked into a café recently. There was a lovely desktop published sign stuck on a potted plant that said, “YES, I am real, so don’t break my leaves, because it hurts. THANK YOU.” The appropr…

Under-promise and over-deliver For regular readers of my column, you may have heard me use the term “under-promise and over-deliver” in an offhand way from time to time. For me, the logic seems incredibly obvious and I just assume that ev…

Technicians have a choice: Deliver what users want or be happy in the unemployment queue Most IT technicians don’t worry too much about unemployment figures or the risk of being unemployed. There are logical reasons for that – the latest …

Remember swings and roundabouts for client satisfaction     Long gone are the days when an IT organisation simply quoted an hourly rate, performed the work and then sent a bill reflecting the number of hours multiplied by the hour…

Lead Article (Self-help topic – CREATE AN ADVISORY BOARD) My focus for this month centres on communication. Companies often have a great story to tell but potential clients don’t know about it because they don’t hear about it. If th…

Make your staff feel like they are worth a million dollars – without spending a million There was a small business I once owned that I sold to a public company. I had a group of almost thirty employees that were committed and focused and really…

Lead Article (Self-help topic – Answer the questions that aren’t asked)  I am sure you are all familiar with Donald Rumsfeld’s most famous quote. “There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are k…

Great staff are vital to a great MSP (Part 2) Last week I spoke about the number one reason employees leave their employer – in ninety per cent of cases it is because they think their boss is a jerk. This week I want to discuss strategies to ke…

Great staff are vital to a great MSP In a recent worldwide survey, employers were interviewed in relation to their most recent staff resignation. They wanted to know what was the primary reason for their staff member leaving their job. The statistics…

Lead Article (Self-help topic – PRICING STRATEGY) Managed Services, as with any business model, requires a pricing strategy that ensures the business owner is profitable while providing the feeling to the client that they are receiving services…

Self-fulfilling Internet prophecy Over the school holidays, my kids dragged out an old Scalextric slot car kit and set it up to revive some old memories of when they were much younger. In the modern age of electronics and new product releases every f…

CPI I received an old-fashioned letter in my post box just after the start of the New Year. It was a letter from a tradesman I deal with semi-regularly. It was extremely apologetic and almost had a tone of embarrassment. The owner of the business sen…