As Domotz is a powerful part of your onboarding process, we wrote an entire MSP Onboarding Template Checklist for you.
This article will summarize our MSP onboarding checklist and all the actions you need to complete and consider. For the entire printable checklist, just download our white paper.
As an MSP, onboarding new clients is critical to your success.
The onboarding process sets the tone for your relationship with your new clients. If the process is efficient, it can leave a positive impression on your client.
A well-organized onboarding process can make your client feel valued and set expectations for the rest of your working relationship.
Benefits of Organizing the MSP Onboarding Process
- Sets the tone: A well-planned onboarding process ensures that you and your client are on the same page. An MSP Onboarding Template Checklist can help.
- Establishes clear expectations: You’ll define your services, the implementation timeline, and costs.
- Builds trust: A structured onboarding process can help build trust with your client.
- Reduces errors: Following a defined process makes it less likely for mistakes to occur and costs to pop up down the road.
Onboarding Dos
- Listen and understand: Avoid making assumptions about your client’s needs and wants. Instead, take the time to listen and understand their unique situation.
- Take your time: Avoid rushing through the onboarding process to secure the deal. Take the time to ensure that the client’s needs are fully understood and that they are satisfied with the proposed plan.
- Be realistic: Avoid making promises that you cannot keep. Be honest and real about what you can deliver.
Phases of the MSP Onboarding Checklist
The MSP onboarding process includes three significant areas: the pre-onboarding stage, the initial meeting, and the implementation stage.
1) Pre-Onboarding Stage
Before you start onboarding a new client, it is essential to determine whether they are a good fit for your business.
Here are some of the critical steps you should take:
Determine the client’s needs
You must understand your potential client’s business requirements to determine whether you have the skills and resources to meet their needs. Check out our article about how to get, manage and retain MSP Clients.
Audit the network and IT environment
You need to know what you’re working with. You can use Domotz network monitoring software, and many of our MSP clients do. Domotz will give you a complete inventory of your client’s network and show you what you’re working with. Auditing the network helps you price things efficiently. You may ask clients what they have, but they probably do not know. Using Domotz ensures you know what you’re dealing with. You can use this information for pricing and making hardware upgrade recommendations. Ultimately it’ll help you define a Service Level Agreement (SLA) based on what your customer has on their network.
Conduct a risk assessment
Assess the client’s network, systems, and security to determine risks and vulnerabilities and define the risk assessment process.
IT Strategy
Based on the assessment, create a customized IT strategy for the client that outlines specific recommendations and solutions for improvement.
Scope of work
Define the scope of work, including timelines, milestones, and deliverables, and obtain their agreement.
Onboarding plan
Create an onboarding plan that outlines the steps required to get the client’s systems up and running on your managed services platform.
Determine the pricing and SLA
Because you have an inventory of the network (using Domotz or another software) and have conducted a risk assessment, you have all the information you need to price things efficiently. Establish pricing and payment terms that meet the client’s budget and expectations. Define the SLA and corresponding options for your client. Present tiered levels of services so your clients can choose what best fits their needs.
Share the pricing and SLA with your client
Collect feedback about your pricing, the various service levels available, and what you can offer.
2) Initial Meeting
The initial meeting is the first interaction with the new client. Setting the tone for the rest of the onboarding process is critical. There are a couple of things you’ll want to do during this stage.
Pro tip: If using Domotz for auditing the network, you will already have a complete inventory of devices and systems. Thus, you can rely on something other than obtaining this information verbally, which can lead to errors and omitted information.
Establish a relationship: The first important goal during the client onboarding process is understanding your client’s needs. The more you listen, the better you know your client’s needs. Building trust starts with one straightforward question – What does success look like for you?
Gather information and document it: During this meeting, you’ll also need to gather specific information about your client, from warranty information to Internet Server Provider (ISP) details.
Sign the SLA: Once you’ve collected all the required information about your client’s network infrastructure, you must provide the SLA. Evaluate your SLA and ensure you get what you
expect from this relationship.
3) Implementation Stage
Once the SLA is signed and you have held your initial meeting, it is time to get to work. The implementation stage is the most demanding one of the onboarding process. You’ve got a lot of steps to cover. From welcoming your client, adding them to payment systems, reviewing policies, and internal team meetings, there are many things to do. In this phase, you’ve also got to set up every system, from network monitoring software to Professional Services Automation (PSA) tools and your RMM.
Client Welcome
Once you know everything about your client and the SLA is signed, it’s time to make your customer feel comfortable in the relationship with your company and your team. You’ll want to send them company information and onboarding surveys. You’ll also want to schedule welcome calls internally and externally with your new client.
Payment Setup
You’ll also need to set up your client for billing and communicate the cycle. You’ll need to add them to any accounting software and ensure you are all on the right page regarding payments.
Policy Review
After welcoming your client and setting up your payment systems, you must review the existing policies. You’ll then need to propose any changes or new drafts to your clients.
System Setup
Setting up all the systems for your new client is the most time-consuming aspect of onboarding. System setup is when you must go through and configure every system for your new client. You’ll need to configure every scenario, from network monitoring, RMM, backup and disaster recovery, security, documentation, and more. We’ve created a detailed checklist to help guide you through all of these possible tasks depending on the services you’re offering.
Organize training & Go Live
Once you’ve set up and tested every system, it is time to organize training sessions for your new client. Organizing training sessions could include scheduling cyber awareness and systems training sessions. Once training is complete, you’re ready to go live.
Follow-up and QBRs
You will want to send your customer any reports in the agreed timeline. You’ll also want to have a systematic way of checking in on them. If there are any recurring meetings, make sure you schedule them. Schedule an account health check for the first month. Once things run smoothly, you will want to schedule Quarterly Business Reviews (QBRs) with your client every three months.
How Domotz helps with your MSP Onboarding Checklist
Many of our existing customers use Domotz network monitoring software for onboarding new clients.
Here’s how we can help you with your MSP Onboarding Checklist.
- Automated device inventory: A complete list of every device on the network.
- Pricing and hardware upgrades: Use the Domotz real-time network device list to recommend new software and hardware upgrades and to price things correctly.
- Network topology mapping: Automatically plots the endpoints on the network and create a network topology diagram.
- Network security scans: Scans for security risks, opened ports, UPnP port forwarding, and more.
- Network monitoring: Ongoing monitoring of your client’s network and devices for optimal performance.
- Alerts on new devices: Alerts you when new mobile phones, computers, and other gadgets are connected.
- Threshold alerts: Get alerts in real-time on important variables through SNMP, like the printer is running out of ink or NAS is running out of storage.
- Network performance: See how your client’s network performs and recommend improvements.
- Network configuration backup: Backup network switch, firewall, and access point configurations.
- Automated ticket generation for PSA tools: Send tickets to your PSA tool for network and device events.
- Automated network inventory for documentation tools: Keeps your documentation tool updated with all the latest devices and network information.
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