How to Build a Culture of Continuous Improvement

"The Data-Driven Edge for MSPs: How to Build a Culture of Continuous Improvement" examines the KPIs and metrics that help managed service providers measure performance, prove value, and keep clients healthy. Part of the MSP Insights series, the session pairs consultant Mendy Green (founder of Rising Tide Consulting Group and a former MSP CTO) with Morgan Aspinall (Halo PSA), alongside Hannah from Simplesat on the customer satisfaction side. The throughline: get the data out, evaluate it, make decisions, and repeat so the line keeps moving up.

Key takeaways

• Track effective hourly rate rather than just recurring revenue, aiming for roughly two to three times the hourly cost of the technician doing the work to confirm an agreement is actually profitable.
• Calculate backlog time with simple math (open tickets times estimated time per ticket against available agent hours) to know whether you're staffed for the workload.
• Separate the actual time worked from the rounded, billable agreement time, and track both so utilization and billing stay honest.
• Aim for "Twilight Zone" healthy customers between the too-quiet and too-noisy extremes, since silence often signals a client who doesn't understand the relationship and may churn after an audit.
• Use a ticket-volume trend by customer and vertical to spot abnormal noise, then address the root cause: raise rates, replace a problem device, or train a repeat-issue user.
• Invest in training because less time per ticket compounds into higher profitability, better quality, and happier clients.

What they covered

Mendy reframed the MSP as a "middleware services provider" caught between vendors and clients, then mapped common challenges to measurable KPIs: effective hourly rate, backlog time, agent utilization, efficient (billable) time use, kill rate, and quality via escalations. He stressed continuous improvement as an iterative trend rather than a fixed benchmark, since the right numbers vary by MSP.

Morgan demonstrated how Halo PSA captures this internally through timesheets, charge types, and per-agent cost-per-hour, and externally through real-time self-service dashboards that justify value to clients without waiting for a quarterly review. He noted Halo itself slowed customer intake after data showed satisfaction dropping with throughput.

Hannah closed by showing how Simplesat's CSAT and NPS surveys integrate with Halo, syncing feedback to private notes and follow-up tickets to convert noisy or unhappy customers into healthy ones.

The full recording and slides are available on request.

Give us a try

Signup for HaloPSA's free trial