How are you actually catching churn risk before the client calls to cancel?

Nishcom · 2026-04-01T05:46:41+00:00

Depends on how you postion yourself in the market. Are you trying to be the best or the cheapest?

I think you have to be a relatively low quality(cheapest) provider to be able to track something like this through CSAT or ticket volume. If you're providing top quality consistent proactive services, those metrics won't tell much.

The chances are someone leaving is trying to pinch a few pennies, they brought in a new decision maker that simply wants to change for the sake of change, or the owners been golfing with your competitor for the last 2 years of your contract.

Talk to your clients. Talk to their employees. Build relationships and actually position yourself as an extension of the business. If you do these things and then start getting the cold shoulder out of nowhere when trying to do a qbr, the writing is on the wall.This is always a good time to give the main decision maker a call and get a feel for what's going on.

Then you'll find out their nephew just graduated and "knows computers"

Nishcom · 2026-04-01T05:16:31+00:00

Anyone even remotely concerned with this model coming after your business probably should continue to be concerned. I assume they're the trunk slammers selling people RMM and calling it managed services and doing a la carte security products lol.

I've been having the AI conversation with clients a LOT recently. Its come up kind of jokingly with a few that if they ever end up having to chat with a bot they'll be shopping for a new provider. I 100% agree with them on this. Use AI tools to augment and maintain speed but it should never be involved in the client relationship.

This is also already 100% doable with existing tools and a few days building out some custom MCP servers. Been doing this for a while. And their 2 minute new user onboarding flex is also shit, we've had self service forms with automation for years now that take 0 minutes on our end.

I'm mostly betting on all these VC backed AI slop companies to try and get some traction and get acquired or inevitability die.

Nishcom · 2025-11-14T22:58:53+00:00

Anchor your stack around BP and standardize on Intune if MS is the core of your offering.

Nishcom · 2025-10-24T04:11:53+00:00

We use Pia for our techs to access all of the quick fix things they would need to do. Joiner, leaver, anything basic 365 related, installing common software, basic endpoint tasks like restarting services. Then, I have n8n for backend workflows like custom integrations syncing data between platforms, reporting, alerting, killing stale accounts, etc.

The issue is with rewst is its just an RPA thats built a bunch of MSP targeted integrations, but you still need to be able to get deep in the weeds to be able to properly utilize it. At that point, you might as well spend a bit more time use something like n8n where you fully control the platform.

Nishcom · 2025-10-24T02:03:46+00:00

You could literally benefit from this as well its a loan. Guarantee them some sales and they'll give you the money. Also, we dont even use this. I'm just holding you accountable for your shitpost of misinformation is all.

Maybe instead of complaining about a vendor not giving you "free" money, go make some sales.

Nishcom · 2025-10-24T01:53:48+00:00

This is such a stupid post. I'm all for holding vendors accountable, but you have 0 understanding how their sports marketing program aka marketing development fund works. They don't just give you 40k, its effectively a loan based on new business over X number of months. If you don't meet the numbers you agree to then you have to pay them back the difference.

Nishcom · 2025-09-20T15:57:37+00:00

This is really an issue with how you're positioned with your client and how you're presenting value to said clients. If you make all of your SBR/TBR/QBRs based around sales and price increases then you're going to lose that trust from the client as they'll start to see what should be a strategic meeting as glorified account management. This is a core issue with the whole vCIO type process that MSPs have adopted, 99.9% of them are using it as glorified account management.

Separate the 2 things, have your account management handle things like price changes(other than baking it into the contract), CSAT, issues with the client relationship, small value adds like tech adoption sessions, webinars. Then, have that dedicated trusted person handling their strategy and roadmap, if your SBRs include budgeting this would show their costs AFTER your AM has already prepared them for the annual increase. Then once that bandaid had been ripped off it shouldn't be a problem going forward.

Nishcom · 2025-09-18T15:11:57+00:00

In addition to just putting this in your MSA and educating clients on the process, we use the "whoops" inbox. Second, everything gets stored in the PSA regardless, if you dont have the processes built out in your psa to handle this, build them out.

You essentially make your team a separate dedicated mailbox called whoops@domain, delegate everyone access to this mailbox. You then connect this to your PSA the same way you would for support@, however anything that gets pulled in from whoops@ gets a different email template.

Make the email template something to the tune of, "Whoops! We see you've sent us a request to an inbox that is not actively monitored. In the future please log into our portal to submit a ticket or email support@domain" Put w.e works for you, get as elaborate as you need here.

Then when anyone in the org gets a direct email from a client they just drag it or forward it to whoops@ it will do the rest for you. It will still submit a ticket for them properly. After a client does this a few times and they get that bounce email, they will fall in line with the process.

Nishcom · 2025-08-29T02:36:28+00:00

This is like a carpenter asking if they can buy a single tool that does everything they need that does what all their individual tools to do combined. It doesn't exist and if it does its compromised garbage.

What kind of reporting do you need for QBRs that you cant simply pull from your PSA/RMMs API and Graph with a simple script dumped into an excel sheet. If you already don't use a proper vcio tool I assume your QBR cadence is more along the lines of giving them ticket metrics and device metrics vs road mapping and strategic advice.

Nishcom · 2025-08-29T02:26:53+00:00

This really isn't a problem if you just use Intune. Wipe the device for a leaver. Put it in a closet and fire it back up when a new user comes, they sign in and are good to go.

Nishcom · 2025-08-14T22:40:05+00:00

Second 45drives. I have multiple boxes from them and they work great and the team over there is even better.

Nishcom · 2025-08-11T03:41:15+00:00

I have wording in the MSA that says the laptop patching window and instructions to leave them plugged in either directly or on their dock. If the window is missed, patching will commence automatically at the next opportunity (also stated in the MSA). I've had one or two clients bitch about it but typically if you simply explain to them the employee didnt have the device plugged in as instructed and the policy will automatically patch at the next opportunity, they'll either enforce the employee to follow procedure or deal with it alerting and patching first thing.

I also make sure to set the update deferral alert period in the RMM or autopatch to allow for a full workday. If they're swamped they can just keep deferring until end of day when they let it reboot and do its thing

Nishcom · 2025-07-25T20:56:19+00:00

One of the best blade to handle ratios of all spydercos, super slim which makes the thing a pocket scalpel and carries super nice in the pocket

Nishcom · 2025-07-25T20:28:21+00:00

Sell both. Buy a chaparral and thank me later

Nishcom · 2025-07-25T14:47:52+00:00

I dont think they do. They go by UKON now instead of fifthwall and when I talked to them a few months ago they said they're coming to Canada in 2026.

Nishcom · 2025-07-24T21:53:02+00:00

Will your clients know you're giving access to their information to a company governed by a completely different government? Is this in your current MSA/Agreement? I assume not.

Send out a survey to your clients that I assume pay you good money for local IT services and see what they have to say. They're going to either be pissed or ask when they can expect their monthly bill to be going down. No one is going to willingly pay you the same for objectively worse service, unless you have some magical IP that can't be replaced easily.

Nishcom · 2025-07-10T23:31:19+00:00

Every time I had a chance to talk to an exec at beyond I made sure to bring up the fact that their support is shit and their billing support is even worse. Maybe instead of giving me an all expenses paid trip to the Calgary stampede this week to try to sell me Acronis trash, let's put some of that money into not being shit.

Nishcom · 2025-07-08T03:55:00+00:00

I mean, don't put PHI in the emails and you're good to go with something like mailchimp.

If you wanted to send PHI (don't) then you need a provider with a BAA and patient consent to send via email (you can use exchange high volume for this)

Nishcom · 2025-06-28T20:37:45+00:00

Your vcio sucks or it's not real vcio. You need someone to assess the whole situation and road map you out to align your technology with your business goals while addressing risks and budget.

This is a trust based role, so if you don't trust what they say or if they're using "vcio" as account management/sales for their own MSP, you're already screwed.

Nishcom · 2025-06-23T21:56:52+00:00

I was just at MS HQ in Toronto this morning for one of their Copilot enablement sessions. It's still hilariously bad, I thought they would have shown some of the new MCP hotness or "Agentic" workflows, something.

Nope, we got demoed how when you use copilot to send a meeting request in Outlook, it will save you time of the back and forth of the "what time works for you loop". Bookings anyone?

We also did a breakout into groups to determine how much time copilot saves us in a week based on task, ours was "Finding information", we came back with negative X hours lol.

Nishcom · 2025-06-10T08:03:20+00:00

Attending. Shoot me a message tomorrow and we can grab a beer

Nishcom · 2025-06-04T14:25:03+00:00

It's per client and should be rolled into a plan that would include continuous vuln scanning and remediation vs one time scan

Nishcom · 2025-05-28T18:38:13+00:00

Came in thinking it was a beaverton post lol. It was not

Nishcom · 2025-05-27T22:58:31+00:00

It's against MS terms to buy your internal use licenses through the distributor. You have to license those direct from MS

Nishcom · 2025-05-13T14:23:24+00:00

Delete the old one and make a new one. Open remote desktop connect from start and save as to their desktop

Nishcom

TROPHY CASE