One of the most difficult nuts to crack on the differentiated customer service front is being proactive—in a halcyon world, providers would have real-time awareness of what’s happening in their customers’ networks and be able to address issues without having to wait for a trouble ticket call. Ideally, they could swoop into action before the customer even notices there’s an issue.
Uplevel Systems is taking a step forward on that front by adding intelligent push notifications for managed service providers (MSPs). MSPs that use Uplevel’s infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) platform to deliver value-added fixed and wireless services to small businesses can sign up for "iLevel Alerts," which will automatically notify them if their clients' local networks and VPNs, Wi-Fi, storage, backup or cybersecurity posture needs attention.
"For smaller companies, having trusted experts remotely monitoring their network is the next best thing to having IT professionals on staff," said Tom Alexander, president and CEO at Uplevel, in a statement. "And for MSPs, the next best thing to being onsite with customers is being able to add value remotely. By alerting the MSP as or before issues occur, iLevel alerts change the dynamic to one in which the MSP is proactively preventing business disruptions—which inspires confidence and peace of mind among clients—versus simply responding to issues after the fact."
Alerts can be sent to IT solution providers' trouble-ticketing systems, smartphones or any device of choice, and the notifications cover the gamut, from routine to uncommon events. The system also pinpoints the cause, whether it’s an internet outage, disk capacity problem, a physical issue like systems being turned off or unplugged, or something else entirely.
For example, during a recent heatwave, one Portland, Oregon-based Uplevel partner received an alert informing them that a client's network had gone offline, though diagnostic logs indicated no issues with the system itself.
"We reached out to the customer, who confirmed that a circuit breaker in the building had tripped due to all of the power being used by air conditioning systems," said Kyle Brown, owner of Sentinel Tech. "The real benefit was that the client knew and felt reassured that we were watching over their systems and able to alert them to issues before they turned into real business problems."
MSPs already using Professional Services Automation (PSA) tools for trouble-ticketing can integrate Uplevel data into their existing workflows, while IT consultants transitioning to a managed services model can receive alerts via email without having to invest in new systems, the company noted.
"Time is money in any service business, and this is the first time that this level of real-time data has been readily available in one convenient interface," said Tony Manso, owner of Taipan Managed Solutions, a Miami-based MSP. "Uplevel integrates all of the network functions my small business customers needs and makes it easy to support a lot of customers with a small staff. We're in a better position than ever to deliver the peace of mind that leads customers to opt for managed IT solutions in the first place."