The hard truth about chat support for MSPs: You’re already behind
If you haven’t integrated chat support into your MSP offering yet, you’re already playing catch-up. The reality is, that clients no longer tolerate slow, fragmented support—they demand immediate, efficient solutions that fit into their daily workflows. What was once seen as a “nice-to-have” feature has now become a critical service requirement. If your MSP isn’t offering chat support, you’re not just missing out on a trend, you’re actively jeopardizing client relationships and potentially losing ground to your competition.
However, adopting chat support isn’t just about keeping up with trends—it’s about strategically enhancing your service offering to boost customer satisfaction, streamline operations, and maximize profitability.
Modern chat-based Professional Services Automation (PSA) tools backed by AI capabilities, are reshaping the way MSPs deliver customer support. They’re transforming chat from a basic messaging service to a sophisticated ecosystem that reduces response time, improves client engagement, and drives cost savings. But before you take the plunge, you need to assess whether your MSP is prepared to deliver chat support that aligns with both user expectations and business objectives.
Benefits and challenges with chat-based support
While the potential of AI-driven chat support is immense, the challenge lies in ensuring that the professionalism and depth of service clients expect from traditional support channels—like phone and email—are not only maintained but enhanced. Chat, by its very nature, is fast and often informal, which can make it tempting to sacrifice the personalized, thoughtful support that builds lasting user relationships.
With phone and email support, there’s typically more time to fully engage with the user, dig into the complexities of their issues, and provide a tailored solution. Chat, on the other hand, demands a quick and precise approach that can feel transactional if not done right. The real risk is that MSPs could accidentally create a feeling of depersonalization, as users could perceive chat interactions as rushed or less comprehensive.
The opportunity of multitasking in chat support:
Moreover, chat often introduces a new layer of managing multiple concurrent conversations. While techs may be accustomed to managing one phone call or email thread at a time, chat support introduces the opportunity for multitasking, optimizing their time, and increasing throughput. This shift can lead to significantly reduced wait times for users and more efficient use of tech expertise.
When handled correctly, chat enables techs to provide quick, focused solutions across a variety of user queries, enhancing overall productivity. Techs can easily switch between conversations, using pre-built responses or AI assistance, making it possible to respond to more users in less time. This boosts the overall service capacity of your MSP, giving your team the ability to scale effectively and meet rising demand without sacrificing quality.
Maximizing AI’s role and enhancing human support:
AI-driven chat solutions can take over simple queries and triage issues efficiently and intelligently, allowing your team to focus on more complex problems that require human expertise. By implementing smooth escalation processes, AI not only resolves routine support issues but also ensures that users receive immediate, relevant assistance when they need it.
This strategic use of AI means users are always attended to quickly, while human agents step in only when their expertise is truly needed—ensuring the support they receive is both efficient and highly personalized.
This AI-human collaboration frees up your techs from repetitive tasks, allowing them to work smarter, not harder. With AI handling the routine, your team can direct their attention to more intricate, high-value issues, improving both response time and quality of service.
Empowering technicians with new skills:
While your techs will certainly need to be adept in managing chat interactions, this requirement presents an invaluable opportunity for upskilling. As your team becomes more proficient in chat support, they’ll also become experts in delivering clear, concise responses that maintain a professional tone across all communication channels. This empowers your techs to handle a wider variety of issues, giving them the confidence to manage multiple support requests simultaneously while ensuring every user receives quality service.
With proper training, your team will be equipped to handle complex technical problems while remaining efficient and responsive. This new skill set not only improves their technical acumen but also enhances their ability to communicate effectively in high-pressure environments, ensuring your MSP is always prepared for whatever challenges arise.
Seamless cross-platform support for users:
Integrating chat support across platforms like MS Teams, Slack, and WhatsApp isn’t a challenge—it’s a tremendous opportunity to reach users wherever they are. By offering support within the communication tools that your users already use, you’re embedding support in their daily workflows, which makes the experience more convenient and seamless.
This capability allows your MSP to enhance client satisfaction and offer a multichannel service that outpaces traditional methods.
Scaling client interactions without losing the personal touch:
The real power of chat support lies in its ability to scale without compromising the personal touch. With AI handling the basic queries and techs available for more complex cases, you maintain that critical human element that builds trust and strengthens client relationships. The shift to chat doesn’t mean sacrificing quality or personalization—it means offering the best of both worlds: efficient AI-powered support paired with human expertise when needed.
By scaling interactions intelligently, your MSP can deliver faster, more responsive service without alienating clients. The result is a service model that’s both efficient and deeply personalized, which drives long-term client loyalty and satisfaction.
Ensuring comprehensive operational readiness for effective chat support
Before launching chat support, it’s crucial to assess your MSP’s overall operational readiness—not just in terms of AI integration but across your entire service delivery model. Effective chat support requires alignment between your staffing, processes, technology, and service infrastructure to ensure you can scale quickly, respond efficiently, and maintain service quality.
- Chat-native PSA Systems: Adopting a chat-native PSA system is a game-changer for MSPs looking to provide seamless, real-time support. These systems are designed with chat support at their core, meaning that every interaction is optimized for real-time messaging. Chat-native PSAs eliminate the need for clunky integrations, ensuring that all conversations—whether simple queries or complex troubleshooting—are automatically logged, tracked, and routed to the appropriate tech within the Service Desk. These systems enable end-to-end ticket management directly within the chat interface, meaning your support team can handle everything from initial inquiries to final resolutions within a single platform. Users experience a smoother, more efficient service, and your team benefits from an all-in-one system that removes friction, enhances productivity, and ensures that service history is documented instantly.
- Staffing and Skillset: Your techs should be equipped to manage multiple chats concurrently, each requiring clear and concise communication. They need to be trained in handling quick interactions without compromising on the depth of support. Additionally, they should be well-versed in knowing when AI can take the lead and when human intervention is required, ensuring smooth escalation paths without any loss of context or service quality. This involves upskilling your team not only on technical troubleshooting but also on chat-specific communication protocols.
- Process Optimization: Operational readiness also involves reviewing your support workflows to optimize for chat. Traditional processes may need to be adjusted to cater to the real-time nature of chat support. For instance, creating standardized response templates, pre-built troubleshooting checklists, and AI-powered escalation rules can ensure faster issue resolution without sacrificing service quality. Establishing clear workflows ensures that chat support becomes an integrated part of your service delivery, reducing redundancies and bottlenecks.
- Technology Infrastructure: Your MSP’s technology stack must support seamless communication between chat platforms, your PSA system, and other service tools. Integrated systems that let users create tickets, track client history, and ensure real-time data sharing between techs and end-user systems are crucial. Assess whether your existing systems are equipped to handle chat as a central support channel without adding complexity or operational overhead.
- Monitoring and Analytics: With chat support, constant monitoring of both performance metrics and client satisfaction is key. Implementing real-time dashboards for response times, ticket escalations, and resolution effectiveness will allow you to track both tech efficiency and performance. Gathering feedback on chat interactions from users also helps refine processes and improve the experience.
- Client Expectations: It’s not just about your internal capabilities—your users must also be prepared for a shift to chat support. Communicate expectations clearly, ensuring they understand how chat support will work, its benefits, and when human intervention will be available. Evaluate your client base to ensure they’re comfortable with chat and willing to embrace the convenience it offers. For users using platforms like MS Teams or Slack, offering support directly in those channels will minimize friction and lead to better adoption.
- Capacity and Scalability: Your MSP should also assess whether its current capacity can handle the added volume of real-time chat interactions. This includes ensuring sufficient staffing to manage peak times, as well as scalable infrastructure that can handle increased chat volume without affecting performance or quality. Scaling chat support effectively will involve implementing tools that allow you to dynamically allocate resources based on demand, ensuring responsiveness during busy periods.
- Service Quality Consistency: Finally, your MSP needs to ensure that chat support doesn’t compromise the high level of service expected by clients. Ensuring consistent service means having the right protocols in place to maintain professionalism, accuracy, and thoroughness in every interaction.
Identifying user preferences for chat adoption
To successfully adopt chat support in your MSP, identifying user preferences is critical to ensuring that the solution fits their needs and seamlessly integrates into their workflows. The more aligned your support channels are with how users already communicate, the higher the chances of smooth adoption and increased user satisfaction.
- Survey and Direct Feedback:
The most effective way to understand user preferences is to ask directly. Conduct surveys or informal discussions with key users to gather insights into their current support experience and preferences. Ask specific questions about their preferred communication channels and pain points with existing support methods. Do they use MS Teams, Slack, or other messaging platforms for internal communication? If so, implementing chat support directly within these tools will feel natural to them, reducing friction and ensuring that your support process is embedded in their day-to-day work.
- Customer Segmentation:
Recognize that customer preferences can vary significantly based on factors like industry, company size, and internal processes. Larger customers or enterprise customers may prefer the formality and complexity of legacy channels like phone or email, while smaller businesses might favor faster, more informal communication channels like chat. Understanding these differences allows you to tailor your chat support offering to better meet their expectations. For instance, a small business that values speed and flexibility may respond well to chat support, while a large enterprise might prioritize chat support embedded within its existing enterprise tools like MS Teams.
- Use Existing Platforms:
Chat support should align with the tools your users are already using. If users predominantly use Slack or MS Teams for their internal communication, offering chat support within these platforms makes it easier for them to get help without switching to an external tool. This integration reduces friction and enhances the adoption rate of chat support, as they won’t have to learn a new platform or change their workflow. By meeting users where they already work, you’re improving the convenience and value of your service.
- Analyzing Support Interactions:
Analyzing historical data from previous support interactions can reveal trends in communication preferences. For example, you might notice that users prefer email for technical queries, but they turn to chat for faster, less complex inquiries. Understanding how different types of issues are communicated can guide how you implement and prioritize chat support. Some issues, like network troubleshooting or software updates, might be best addressed through a more structured, guided workflow on a chat interface, while others, such as urgent service outages, might require a more direct, human approach.
- Trial Runs and Feedback Loops:
Before rolling out chat support widely, consider running pilot programs with a select group of customers. During these trials, closely monitor how users interact with the chat system and ask for feedback about their experience. This will help you identify potential areas of improvement and refine the chat service offering. Regular feedback loops also allow you to make continuous improvements, ensuring that the chat system evolves with your users’ needs and expectations.
- Use of AI for Efficient Issue Resolution:
Incorporate AI-powered workflows to handle basic and routine queries while keeping users engaged in the support process. When they are used to chat support for basic issues like password resets, network diagnostics, or status checks, they’ll appreciate the speed and convenience. But more importantly, they’ll trust the system to escalate their issues to a human agent only when necessary. This balance ensures that they get fast resolutions without feeling frustrated by delays.
By understanding your users’ communication preferences and aligning your chat support offering with their existing workflows, you can enhance the effectiveness and adoption of your service. The key is to avoid assumptions about what they need and instead listen to them, offering chat support in the contexts and tools they are already comfortable with. By doing so, you’ll not only improve user satisfaction but also position your MSP as a forward-thinking, user-centric provider that adapts to their needs.
Time-to-Value Analysis: Ensuring Chat Support is Financially Viable
Implementing chat support is not just about adding a feature to your MSP offering—it’s about driving immediate value by optimizing support operations and enhancing the customer experience. To understand the financial viability of chat support, it’s important to assess time-to-value, focusing on both cost savings and the new revenue opportunities that arise from adopting chat support systems.
- Operational Efficiency and Time Savings:
One of the most immediate benefits of chat support is the ability to handle multiple tickets simultaneously, enabling techs to work more efficiently. For instance, if your techs currently spend 1 hour a day resolving common issues like password resets, incorporating AI-powered chat can reduce their workload by handling routine inquiries. If AI resolves just 20% of these inquiries, it saves ~$18 per day per tech—resulting in ~$4,680 in savings per tech annually. This time-saving translates directly into improved service delivery and cost reductions, freeing up your techs to focus on more complex issues.
- Flat-Rate Chat Solutions:
Many modern chat-native PSA solutions operate on a flat-fee pricing model, which makes it easier to budget and project costs over time. For example, DeskDay, a chat-native PSA starts at around $59 per tech per month, which eliminates the complexity of per-user pricing. This model simplifies forecasting costs, providing predictable expenses that make it easier for MSPs to scale chat support without surprise costs.
- AI and Workflow Automation:
By leveraging AI in chat support, your MSP can automate tier-one support functions, such as troubleshooting, basic diagnostics, and service requests. This not only reduces operational overhead but also accelerates issue resolution. AI-driven systems can automatically log issues, create tickets, and route them to the appropriate tech. This automation significantly shortens the time-to-resolution, increasing customer satisfaction and reducing manual workload. Over time, this automation can result in compounding savings from fewer resources spent on routine tasks and faster resolutions.
- Revenue Generation Through Premium Services:
Chat support also opens up new revenue streams. By offering premium chat features like AI-assisted conversations, extended hours, or custom workflows for specific industries, MSPs can create tiered billing models. For example, you might include basic chat support in standard contracts, while charging additional fees for advanced features. This tiered approach not only allows customers to choose the level of support they need but also ensures that your MSP can cover the operational costs while delivering enhanced service.
- Upselling and Proactive Maintenance:
Chat support provides opportunities to upsell additional services by identifying potential issues and trends through customer interactions. With access to real-time data from chat conversations, your team can proactively offer services that anticipate customer needs—such as recommending software updates, network optimizations, or additional training based on issues detected through chat interactions. This proactive approach builds stronger relationships and helps generate additional revenue by positioning your MSP as a strategic partner.
So, is your MSP truly ready for chat support?
As users demand faster, more convenient, and integrated support experiences, MSPs that fail to evolve risk falling behind. But adopting chat support isn’t just about keeping pace; it’s about leading with a smarter, more scalable, and more human approach to service delivery.
When implemented thoughtfully—with the right platforms, AI integrations, training, and workflows—chat support becomes more than a new channel. It becomes a catalyst for operational efficiency, stronger user relationships, and even new revenue streams. From enhancing tech productivity to embedding support directly into user workflows, the impact spans both service quality and business growth.
The MSPs that will thrive are the ones that treat chat support not as a bolt-on feature, but as a core pillar of their service strategy—designed to scale, personalized to engage, and optimized to deliver value at every interaction.
Now’s the time to assess your readiness and take action. The question isn’t whether chat support is worth adopting—it’s whether your MSP is prepared to implement it the right way. Can your team handle real-time, high-volume interactions without sacrificing service quality? Do you have the AI tools and processes in place to scale efficiently? Are you meeting users where they already work, in platforms like Teams and Slack?
More importantly—are you ready to move from reactive support to proactive, always-on service that drives loyalty, reduces overhead, and unlocks new revenue?
Because the MSPs that win in today’s landscape aren’t just offering chat support. They’re delivering it strategically.
Are you one of them?
