The global COVID-19 pandemic caused a massive and immediate shift to remote work which was bolstered by video conferencing telecommunication software such as Microsoft Teams. Although the world is still trying to heal (while simultaneously navigating new and evolving challenges) some organizations have started the process of having their employees return to work and explore new hybrid workforce environments.

Your path to creating an elevated version of your current Microsoft 365 services is one that you already know is needed to create predictability for you and for your customers- predictability yields profitability. The reality is that Microsoft is more focused today on the commodity customer than your specific business needs as an MSP. This is one of the reasons most MSPs tend to take the backup/DR/cybersecurity angle.

The “shared responsibility” model of the cloud puts most of the control with Microsoft, despite the MSP being responsible. As shown below, Microsoft puts very little responsibility into the hands of the customer (or, in your case, the MSP), which is why most MSPs stick to the basic onboarding-related tasks as their Microsoft 365 offering. But the customer’s reliance on Microsoft 365 has changed in the last 14 months… and so have their expectations.

Before you can achieve access to any cloud service a connection to the internet is required. Sounds simple enough, however, the challenge lies not only with the internet connection itself, but the provider of the service as well. Not all internet service providers (ISPs) and pathways to the internet are created equally which makes assessing and understanding the quality of the service you’re on a critical step toward maintaining business productivity.

If a customer has an issue with any part of Microsoft 365, MSPs just don’t have the native visibility to identify the root cause, let alone respond to and remediate the problem. Most of the time, it’s little more than checking Microsoft’s Service Health status to see if Microsoft knows it’s having a problem.

The ability to maintain successful operations in business requires specific agreements that are critical to helping justify service delivery, understand the service performance, and get a budget for any potential infrastructure projects. Service Level Agreements (SLAs) are made between partners and customers and focus on the commitment of the partner to uphold an agreed-to level of service.

To maintain effective Microsoft Teams performance, you must first understand two things: the metrics that define an optimal Microsoft Teams performance and where your Teams performance currently ranks against those metrics. By establishing a Microsoft Teams service quality baseline for your business, you can determine what is normal in terms of performance, and what isn’t. More importantly, you can identify where and when your focus should be to improve the overall user experience.

It’s one thing to be using Microsoft Teams. It’s entirely different to have your users running Teams efficiently. From dropped calls to lags in response time to jittery video connections – Teams isn’t without its daily problems. And yet, you’re being held responsible to not just make sure Teams is up and running but to also improve the quality of the user experience and overall business productivity.

The effects of remote work go beyond an employee trying to remain productive and stay connected to their team. The organization’s IT team must deal with a host of challenges that stem from trying to keep everyone effectively connected to a network when there are things such as different internet service providers and routing paths to contend with. Another challenge faced by IT is the influx of ‘poor call quality issues because of the varying internet connections, equipment setups, etc.

It’s no secret that the modern era in which we live and work must fulfill an ever-increasing demand for digital transformation, especially when it comes to business. Microsoft Teams’ growth over the past year has been exponential, and while many companies rely on Microsoft 365 for their business continuity, very few of them have the tools to manage and support these services internally.