Transcript
Good morning, good afternoon, good evening from where you are. We are here again for episode five of AI Live series for MSPs. I am joined once again by the beautiful Will Dowling. How are you today, sir? Brother, I am great. I'm glad to be here again. I think you're muted. Am I muted? Really? Can you hear me now? I can't hear you. Okay. Apparently Bella can hear me. I'm not muted. It's you, not me. One second. Technical difficulties, apparently. Okay. I love it right off the gate. There we go. There we go. See, it was you, not me. That's on me. I apologize. Anyway, how are you, Will? How's it going? I'm great. I'm excited to be here for yet another episode of AI Live series for MSPs. I am joined once again by the beautiful Will Dowling. How are you today, sir? Good morning, brother. I'm great. I'm glad to be here again. I think you're muted. I think you're muted. It's you, not me. One second. Technical difficulties, apparently. Okay. I love it right off the gate. There we go. There we go. See, it was you, not me. Well, thank you for having me to our show here. AI for the modern MSP is an awesome concept, and I'm super excited to be able to join you again for it, man. Awesome. That's wonderful to hear, both figuratively and literally, seeing as I sort of expose earphones out. But anyway, so just to recap where we're at now in this series. So in episode four, you know, we followed the productivity story, right? Where the AI-driven efficiencies really showed up in the numbers, and what MSPs need to decide before that capacity, which was a big word last month, quietly disappears. So this episode, we're going to lean more into the how do we serve clients better through the experience and also that, well, as the title suggests, you know, it's the experience, right? Literally. So when we think of the experience gap, it is already widening. Would you agree? Right? Most MSP clients don't experience the internal improvements their provider has made sometimes, you know, like what is going well for the MSP might not directly translate into what is felt on the client side. So first question for you to kind of kick things off here. So when MSP leaders talk about improving, not including, they already include it, improve the client experience, what do you believe, Will, is it that most of them are actually describing and where does that fall short of what clients might expect in 2028 or even out further? Yeah, absolutely, man. That's honestly a great question. So like right now, most MSPs are really focused on, for example, like how fast they can resolve issues and how many issues they can resolve with minimal impact. It's honestly, it's all very reactive. You know, I see that also kind of becoming table stakes in the future. So as we're talking through everything with the rise of, you know, agency and the concept of instant IT, the future of the client experience is really based around your relationship with your customers, in my opinion. And you know, really it's about like the quality of what you're able to deliver to them before they even really realize they need it. Yeah. Just to add here, is my audio good? You're a little crackly, but... Is it? Okay. Yeah. I apologize. I'll just... Is that any better? No, you're still crackly, but we can roll with it if we need to. Okay. I apologize. New play. Still ironing out the kinks, I guess. Absolutely. So when we go from reactive to anticipatory, that's a word I struggle to get my tongue around sometimes. So leading into 2026, most client-facing, client-impacting AI implementations are speed improvements on existing patterns, right? Less resolution, quicker responses, less friction. But I would say that that is not going to be the only measurement of which that client relationship is going to depend on, shall we say. They're going to be measured against standards set across many industries, right? Not just the IT industry. So question for you then is, if we fast forward to 2028, what do you feel will be completely unacceptable that clients are actually tolerating today? Where are we seeing that relationship change? And one thing I just want to kind of... I don't want to lead the witness here, but I do have to say this. Given that the clients also have their hands on AI tooling and models and such, just like the MSP does, it's one of those where, back in the day, clients didn't have their own RMM. They didn't have their own PSA. But now this tool that is meant to change everything or radically impact the majority of what we do, how do you see, again, going back to the question, what do you think will be completely unacceptable for that MSP client relationship? I mean, let's just kick it off with waiting hours or even minutes for resolution of issues at this point. I mean, by the time we get to 2028, it's really going to be about, again, it's an idea. If you're having to wait for resolutions, that's going to be what separates you from others. If you're the one they're waiting on, that's going to hurt you. What I mean by that is, when you think about it, your customers are already using AI. If you're not resolving that issue almost instantly for them, they're probably going to an AI tool and going, hey, how do I resolve this issue? Or if they have an agentic component to their operating system, hey, fix this issue for me. And that's, again, degrading your value. Things like, hey, not being able to get in touch with someone to talk through questions like that. And when you think about it, as everyone's able to deliver more of that instant IT, feeling like their service is generic is really just kind of one of those that comes to mind. If they feel like they're a number, they feel like they're not appreciated. And really, the future of IT is going to be making sure that your customers feel appreciated. I was talking to a partner recently, and he told me that the average tenure of his customers is 15 years, which is amazing. That's an incredible statistic. That's fantastic. As an average? Yeah, that's his average customer retention is 15 years. It really goes to show that, I remember the old saying, the MSP business, it's 80% personal, 20% technical. Yeah, 100%. Right. And that definitely backs that up, that statistic. Yeah, 100%. And whenever he and I were talking, he basically told me, hey, look, it's the fact that if someone has an issue that they need to get through, they can just call me directly. They know how to get in touch with my people. My people are very proactive when communicating with them. And those are the things that keep your customers happy. Yeah, I completely agree with that. And it's going back to that 15 years is an incredible duration there. I think as well, a lot of it, and I don't mean to front load a little bit of what's coming later, but it's, like I say, 80% personal, 20% technical. That onboarding, it really does afford you a little bit of time and grace there as the relationship continues. We'll touch on that a little later. So do you think clients then, in three years, like in 2028, then in the future, we always know the clients who noticed the problem before the MSP, right? And at the end of the day, the MSP is there doing their job, the client is there doing their job for their customers. So there are going to be those catch-22-like issues, like MSPs, you don't know what you don't know kind of vibe. 100%. I don't think there is going to be a full, like as the MSP, we see everything before you do. However, there are going to be some instances that the client is absolutely going to realize before the MSP, just because they're in it, right? They're actually working, they're doing the job. So knowing that there are like two types of those, do you think clients will still be accepting when they are always the one, or they feel like they are always the one that notices the problems first? Not agents, honestly. I see that it's been changing very rapidly over the next two years. With AI and even your agentic capability starting to drive that expectation of the invisible IT that I mentioned earlier, where your support is very seamless, you're resolving issues more frequently before your customer even knows they exist. I think that's really going to be the thing that's different. If your customer feels like they're having to chase you for resolutions, like that's not going to be a valuable relationship to them anymore. And it's really going to demand a shift in proactive communication in my opinion as well. And honestly, a very personal touch. Definitely. Yeah. And it's like, I'm giving a portion of my business to this IT provider or this MSP provider. Why am I doing this? Well, it's to save money or save time. But if I'm constantly spending my time to help them, like I shouldn't be, I mean, it's a 50-50 thing completely, but it's like if I've got to put, as the client now, if I've got to put a lot of effort in to save time, it's like I'm spending so much time. To save time, it gets to a point where it's like point of diminishing return or diminishing gain. It's really not worth it sometimes. So I can see that too. And you know, as we're thinking about that, I mentioned, let's say it's a personalization and everyone's like, oh yeah, we've got everything that's personalized. No, it's honestly, it's one of the least understood things in my opinion. It doesn't remain remembering your client's names. Like it doesn't. Like that's just the baseline. It's really more of that like active reflecting like their content and understanding like the context, their industry, you know, what's going on with them. So I'm going to pitch you a question now, man. In your opinion, is personalization scaled kind of a, do you think it's a technology problem? Do you think it's a process problem or is it more of a mindset problem? And is there data out there that MSPs are not leveraging to enable personalization better? So for me, it's, you know, given that it's, you know, if we're saying like 80% a relationship, 20% technical, it's absolutely the mindset, right? And I truly believe that personalization comes from knowing your audience, knowing who you're servicing. So I think having that kind of mindset, it's like the MSP, I would say is like, if I was an MSP today, like, right. What vertical, like I have all these clients, which clients are my, I mean, there is no such thing as a bad client, MSP rule number one, everybody watching, but there are definitely those who are more preferred. I'll just leave it at that. And you just have to take a good look across, okay, I need to be true to my own, my own identity of why I got into business. Why are these relationships with these clients better than these ones? And you may actually find that, oh, we're really excelling in clients that are in the, for instance, manufacturing vertical or dental office vertical or a particular vertical. And I think that personalization will be, okay, apparently I don't know how this happened, but I've really kind of like shoehorned myself into this. I know everybody doesn't like pigeonholing, but it's like, wow, I'm really good at managing the relationship and being personal with people in this, in like vertical A, B, and C, okay. We're just going to focus on those verticals and I will, you know, allow the contracts of the others to go. I apologize if you can hear a leaf blower. I'm really not having the best of audio issues today at all. You're good, man. Leaf blowers are the worst. Anyway, I truly think that it's like, right, I'm really good at vertical A, B, and C. I'm just going to focus, I'm just going to focus my time on these three verticals and I'm going to now invest, like, it's like an accidental, I became the accidental MSP for manufacturing. Okay. Well, you know what? I'm actually now going to put a lot of effort into learning the manufacturing space industry and then have those conversations that are more in tune with what the client and their business is looking to be. So that personalization, it's a mindset problem initially. Then you, you know, build a process that allows you to facilitate, work better together with the particular MSPs in these particular verticals. And then the technology, ironically, in my opinion, somehow comes three out of like third out of three there for some reason. But so you'll find when you are specialized in a particular vertical, this is now going to have a massive impact, hopefully positive on the service desk, on the support tickets. It's like, there's going to be a consistency somewhat across the ticketing and a massive familiarity across the requests that come in from these clients. Oh, we experienced this issue just last week with client number five. It's like MSP 101, right? It's just an accumulation of. You know, I think you're onto something there because in the future, I see specialized verticals really becoming kind of more of the norm for a lot more of the successful MSPs is, you know, because again, it's not going to be about how quickly you give them support, how quickly you fix their issues. If you are in a specialized vertical, guess what? You probably know quite a bit about their business, which means that you're able and set up in a more beneficial position to be able to help support their business and their business growth while also using the insights that you've gained working with that specific vertical to help them differentiate themselves. And I think that's really where a lot of the personalization comes in for me is being able to look at something and go, hey, you know, I see you guys are doing this this way. We've seen a lot of success with other people in your space doing it this other way. And when they start seeing those gains, that makes you, again, the most trusted person that they can rely on. And that's where you start to differentiate. That's actually something that Sean Furman and I were talking about. He's from STF Consulting. He's the one that has the 15-year average retention rate. And he's in a specialized vertical. He focuses on manufacturing, actually. So it's funny that we were talking about that. And that was what he was saying was, hey, they understand those challenges. They understand those concerns. And you can really start to help dig in and make their processes better through that personalization and through understanding what they are able to do and what they're able to achieve. Yeah. And I think a term that the industry has used now for a while, and it's now more prevalent than ever as we look forward, again, my opinion, trusted advisor. Yeah. Right. It's an overused term, but it's the future. It is overused, but I think there was a reason why it was overused, because we finally had it battered into our heads, like trusted advisor, trusted advisor, trusted advisor. But no, in a good way, of course. And as you become this specialized, even if it's accidental, accidental specialized MSP in a particular vertical, you can really now work closer with them. Yeah, man. And you're getting knowledge from all your other clients in the same vertical. So you're continuously learning and being able to pay it forward to your other clients. 100%. Just to touch on support, then, a ticket-driven economy, right? It's a very reactive model. So what would you say, then, might be a tricky one. I hate to put you on the spot with this, but what do you think will break first when an MSP tries to bolt on this proactive, trusted advisor-like nature onto the reactive operating model? Because we're moving now away from tickets, more into more strategic conversations, as opposed to just the tactical, reactive tickets. What are your thoughts with that, as we try to bolt on AI everywhere? Their retention and churn rates are what are going to break first. Look, if a competitor is offering actual proactive support, not just the language of it, they're going to start taking your customers. That's just the truth. Here's the thing. The future isn't going to be decided by just the language you're using. It's going to be decided by if you're using AI to identify failure patterns early. It's going to be actual proactive communication and being able to measure the success by the absence of client-reported incidents. Not just the volume of resolved ones. And that's a big differentiator, is client-reported incidents. If your customers are reporting a ton of incidents, guess what? You're not proactive. You're still reactive. If you're resolving those before they ever even see it, before they ever even touch it, before they can even submit a ticket, guess what? You're moving towards a more proactive state. And that's really where I see a lot of things changing. So at what point would you say faster response, quicker tickets, quick odds, stops being a differentiator and just become straight up table stakes? Yesterday. Full stop. If you're not already doing it, you're behind the curve. So that's why it's so important. I mean, if you're just like, all right, we'll get to it. Like fast response, that's table stakes at this point. You've got to already be doing that. So I'm going to move forward then onto the trust, right? I mentioned trusted advisors. So we're just going to dig into that a little more, but specifically, obviously with the lean on AI, right? So by 2028, clients won't just be consuming AI-assisted support. They'll know they're consuming it. So that's a huge difference. The question isn't whether to be transparent about the AI involvement in service delivery, but it's how to make that transparency a trust signal rather than a concern. So what do you believe? Do you believe clients are... Let me rephrase this question. Yeah. What do you think are the client's first initial assumptions or concerns, worries, apprehensiveness maybe? Or even on the flip side, like, oh, I'm happy to hear that my MSP is using AI and they're very transparent with me on how they're using it. Bit of a fully loaded question here, but do you believe MSPs are being transparent enough in the AI-enabled service delivery to their clients? Just so many things there. Yeah, there's so many questions there. Let's just start with the worries, man. I mean, like that's... Yeah, I think everyone's worried, especially if you're not in it all day, every day like we are. And there's just so many things. Like, you think about what do people worry about? Yeah, degrading customer service for one. Because, hey, guess what? If they're just turning you into a number, turning and burning, like you're not really a person. And that really comes from like, hey, if you're an MSP and you're just automating everything through AI and your customers are never really hearing from someone they're paying a lot of money to every month, that's problematic. You know? And things like, hey, if your cost to them starts going up just because you're using AI, but they're not seeing their day to day better. Just to name a few, man. I mean, it's, you know, not to mention things like, one, like the inherent dislike of humans having to talk to like a machine to get things done. I mean, who else besides me? Representative. If you get a robocall and you start going zero, zero, zero, zero, or saying, you know, talk to a person representative. Yeah, like, inherently, we crave human contact. And I think that when people hear, oh, they're moved, you're using AI, they think, oh, well, great. I'm going to be interfacing with nothing but a robot anymore. And that's, you know, I think one concern that we always need to make sure we're keeping first and foremost in our minds. Yeah. So I mean, clearly then the competitive edge or the competitive advantage of the MSP that leads those conversations, right? This, you know, this is how we are using AI. This is why we are using it. This is how we are using it. You know, as opposed to, again, a reactive, the client's asking, the client's asking the questions, right? Just to be prepared there as the service provider, you know, whether it's MSP, SSP, TSP, Trusted Advisor, whatever label you want to go by. Competitive advantage. Yeah. Clearly. Correct. It is competitive advantage. And the thing is, you know, competitive advantage is based on the truth and like trust. That is the foundation of every relationship. You were talking about it earlier. And I want to get into that just kind of briefly since we're low on time. But like, trust is the foundation of every relationship. If you don't feel like you can trust your MSP, like, you're going to go look elsewhere. You know, transparent AI is really, it's a demonstration of maturity, man. I also believe, and this is, oh, maturity. You mentioned one of my buzzwords. Don't get me started. We've got five minutes left. But no, I think trust goes both ways. Yeah. It's also, it's not just the MSP trusting the client. It's also, you know, you as the MSP have to be mature enough to accept that the client doesn't trust you as well, you know? So I think that solves, again, goes back to the personal experiences, you know? A hundred percent, man. So, all right, let's take that. So we're coming up on time. So I want to just ask you something. Yeah. Talking about MSP leaders, like, man, if an MSP leader wanted to, like, genuinely audit their customer experience today, right? Where would they start? And what's one thing that they should stop doing, in your opinion? So I'm a huge believer in, like, I can get anybody to anything. Like, we all have that same goal. But for me, even on the personal side, I am very much more interested in knowing where you're coming from before I can even start to help map a path for you. So what I would do if you're auditing, you know, okay, what am I doing today? Where am I spending so much time? Where am I spending so much money? Well, tickets. If you think of the MSP, you know, as a universe, the tickets are the atoms that make up the universe, right? It all boils down to the ticket. 100%. So take a good audit of like, you know, what are we actually doing? It's right there in the tickets. And of course, you know, all good technicians leave incredible ticket notes, right? Sure. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Sorry. 2028, you know. 2028, they sure will. Oh, I hope so. Yeah. Documentation and time management. It's amazing how those two things have become more critical than ever. Yeah, 100%. But anyway, honestly, take an audit of what you're doing today and it's all in the tickets. Yeah. And then you, again, okay, now I know where I'm at. Where do you want to go to? And the best person to speak to in order for you to help your current situation are your clients. It's the CEO, owner, whoever you have that business relationship with at the client. Because I believe nobody wants you to succeed as an MSP more than your clients do. They need you to succeed in order for their business to succeed. It's reciprocal. Nailed it. So I would absolutely, because you have, you know, 20 clients, 20 owners, 20 CEOs, all very, very intelligent people. But when it comes to the IT side or the technology side of that business, you know, they may have conceded, hey, I'm not the smartest person in the room. I need an MSP to help me out with my technology needs. Yeah. So go to the owners of your clients, 100%. And the one thing that they should stop doing, a little bit of a hot take here, getting in your own way. Yes. Oh, my gosh. Stop getting in your own way. Just do it. Just do it. Take the first step is always the hardest. But once you've taken it, the next step and the next step, they become easier the more you do. And you build that momentum and that will help drive that relationship. It will help drive the trust. And oh, look at that. Experience has improved. Yeah, I love it. That's a great point. Yeah, that's, again, all my own opinion. But so we've got like one last question here. I just want to throw you away just before we close. Let's do this. So we're talking about future state, right? Yeah. Nobody can predict the future. We all know that. But we can at least entertain the idea of what that could look like, right? So if we fast forward to 2028, two years later, or maybe even three, what do you think MSPs will kind of regret not making movements on or getting, you know, getting ahead of this year? Man, I don't need to be a fortune teller to tell you this one. Like, it's their process. No crystal balls? I don't need one. It's for their processes, man, from the ground up. Like, if you're smart, you need to be looking at every one of your processes right now and redesigning them to work around AI, not just bolting AI onto processes that were initially designed to be performed by humans. The way that that works is fundamentally different. And if you're not already looking at it going, okay, how do we make our processes work around our AI as opposed to how do we just strap AI on and make it do what this human was doing? That's a big miss. And that's really where you're going to regret it in about two years. The other thing is clean up your data. I've said it 10,000 times. Make sure your data is clean. And I'm going to say it 10,000 more because that's, again, fundamental steps. But yeah, it's processes, man. If you're not looking at them and you're not going, cool, I need my processes to work around AI, not I need AI to work with my processes. You're doing it backwards. And change your mindset on that. Yeah, for me to answer my own question, I was thinking a little bit about this earlier on, like, you know, what will MSBs regret? MSPs, we, like, I say we, I used to be an MSP myself, like, we always want to be the hero for everybody. But we can't be everything to everyone all the time. Figure out what you're really good at. Yeah, what's your superpower? Yeah, figure out, yes, find your superpower. And, you know, as they say, play to your strengths, work on your weaknesses. Love it. Really self-reflect. What are you good at? What are you bad at? How can we, and besides, you enjoy doing things that you're good at naturally, right? It becomes easier for you. So if you find yourself just really doing an amazing job in, like, these two verticals, or the, not verticals, but maybe just, like, type of client profile, stick to doing that. Know what you're good at. Yeah, absolutely. I love that. Anyway, I think that absolutely brings us, not just a closing time, but I think a really nice little thing to finish on there. I do agree. So, Will, as always, thank you so much for joining me today. Are you ready for episode six next month? I'm so ready. I mean, yeah, tell me. Awesome. I'll get you booked in. All right, well, thank you so much for joining us today. I'd love to hear your comments, and we will be with you again next month. Have a good one. See you, everybody. Have a great one. Bye. Bye.
