Reporting and Analysis – value for Service Providers

Probably since the Ancient Greeks, “can I get a report on this?” has been a commonly heard request from management, customers, sales, marketing and all, regardless of the business in hand – after all, there have always been dissatisfied customers…

Back then it would have been delivered on papyrus from a very limited data set. Fast forward to the early days of IT as we know it, and it was still a very limited data set to report from, albeit minus the papyrus. But now the world IS data, so having access to the right information – “information at your fingertips” – is no longer a cliché but an absolute necessity. In the service management world of a Service Provider, where customers are all too keen to point out a “service anomaly” which generally leads to a round of finger pointing between client, service provider and hardware/systems providers – let’s throw in cloud as well – having instant access to salient data might be the difference between keeping and losing a customer. On a general basis, understanding customer relations and how you – as an MSP – are performing in relation to their expectations, requires ongoing analysis and regular reporting, as well as diving back into historical data for trend analysis.

Sunrise’s service management platform therefore supports a wide range of analysis and reporting options, from historical data to real-time statistics and the ability to customise these for the target audience. From an MSP perspective, it’s not simply about using analysis to maintain existing customers, but also to attract new ones. If working with customer X is proving successful, and potential customer Y has a similar profile, then that data analysis can equally help to engage with new clients.

On an ongoing basis, Sunrise captures service management interactions with all customers, including tracking incidents, requests, problems and changes. So, it can pro-actively fight potential fires and smooth the way forward for customers looking to move and adapt to new technologies and methodologies. As part of that pro-active approach, alerts based on real-time data analysis can be escalated and allow for further deep-dive analysis. A wide variety of report options are available, not just including all the usual chart options, but true customisation of reports. For example, a customer analysis report on open incidents performance can run against any specified metric, such as all open incidents, as well as then choosing the output type, again supporting all the classic formats. Reports can be run ad hoc, or scheduled, and can be delivered by email – all included in the scheduling process.

Another example in an open incident analysis would be to use filtering to show all incidents currently open on a customer-by-customer basis; ideal also for historical trend analysis. Equally, the Sunrise report manager can also analyse metrics such as performance against SLAs and related targets. However, the reporting options also extend beyond Sunrise’s own platform. For example, Sunrise integrates with Microsoft’s Power BI data analytics service, for intensive drilling down into data specifics. This allows an MSP to carry out more detailed customer service analysis by exporting data into Power BI to complement standard charts and off the shelf Sunrise reports. For example, this might be an overview of customer activity, which can be filtered on a yearly or monthly basis, where they can see key information such as customers who have logged the most activity, as well as their various types of categories and issues they have faced.

Equally, regular updates on performance can show key metrics per customer, notably the vital performance against customer SLAs, which can then be used for internal reporting, showing not simply how well an MSP is delivering the requested services, but also which customers and customer types are a particularly good fit. Additionally, the report engine encompasses Service Desk Institute (SDI) accredited reports – these allow an MSP to report on a monthly basis to see how it is performing against the pre-set KPIs and can be reviewed internally and or shared with customers. Finally, Sunrise can capture event-based customer satisfaction – for example, in the simple form of a user clicking on a happy or sad face.

In summary, accurate and instant analysis is no longer a nice to have – it’s an essential pre-requisite for increasing customer satisfaction and retention, and engaging with new customers.

Watch the demo video of reporting and analysis for Service Providers