What’s it like opening a product where you see ‘some assembly needed’ and there are no instructions included (or the instructions included but, in a language, where you cannot understand)? It looks annoying, isn’t it? Unfortunately, many of your clients experience the same way when they open up managed service agreements!
A good managed services company works as part of the same family as its clients but also acts detached to offer a wider perspective of the business, in order to add value.
As a Managed Services Company, you want to develop a good relationship and see yourself as a trusted provider. That’s a good potential in this range of business. So, it is important to make Managed Service agreement terms clear and short with no jargon. The more your agreement is, the more you and your customers benefit.
Benefits of Managed Services Agreements
Building a managed services agreement (MSA) is the primary task that a Managed service provider (MSP) should do to make yourself ready for delivering service offerings to a potential client. It assists you:
- Determine what services, hardware, users, and vendors are included, as well as those that aren’t.
- Document the managed service responsibilities and roles for the customer and the MSP clearly.
- Precisely mention the customer’s current environments.
- Describe environmental requisites for service.
- Create a baseline environment.
- Make a framework to facilitate profitability.
What to cover in Managed Services Agreements?
The agreement must represent your service-level agreement (SLA), prioritization procedure, delivery milestones, expiry clause, liability constraints, and classification of support tiers and your support desk escalation process. The agreement must also reflect your labor cost for requested services that fall separately from flat-fee support.
While this list dives deeper in the surface of what to add in a managed services agreement, it offers a solid foundation for Managed Service agreements that content clients and build your business. If you would prefer to have a simple and short managed services agreement with only the basic terms and conditions for clients, make sure have covered all these extra specifics mentioned in an appendix.
Continue reading the next blog for the must-haves while preparing Managed Service Agreements
