Vendetta and personal issues
Caution: Statements made in this blog are not censored, not politically correct, and are of the writers opinion. If you cant take it dont read it.
A few posts ago I wrote about Kaseya taking over your customers. As I lead into the posting, I also mentioned that this should be of no supprise as they have been doing this for a long time.
Many comments came in, they mostly were employees of Kaseya but a few were obviously loyal customers that could not see past the horizon, and could not identify themselves for what ever reason ( maybe more employees ??? Jay?)
But now trying to move on, the last post I had (which I didn't allow) mentioned that I had a personal vendetta against Kaseya. Initially I couldn't agree with the comment. However now I am coming forward, I realize I was in denial.
My last post was about Vendor accountability. This week I have been attending Xchange America in Dallas #XAM . After talking to quite a few people whom are vars, a common thread emerged. Vendors who speak on both sides of their mouth. We/I spoke out in the cloud computing boardroom about TRUST. Where I realized I do indeed have a vendetta and personal issues against Kaseya and any other vendor who tries to screw the channel.
Later myself and others all laughed as everyone started talking about this... The rumor is out, even Robert DeMarzo had a slide on his opening season discussing this (went by very fast ). I will get the quote later. Vendors need to stop talking out of both sides of their mouths!
Had great discussions with various people of the industry tonight (IPED, among other vars and vendors), The idea of a Vendor "BBB" could be a great addition in the market right now. Cloud computing is only going to make the need for this greater, as margins and tensions grow with vendors trying to undercut each other, causing a ripple effect on VARs trying to make decent business in this competing/emerging market.
Talking to the many people tonight (VARS) the verdict is in... We need this organization ASAP.
PS. (As it relates at Kaseya) People, if your looking for an RMM partner, look at all your options. Read my earlier posts as to why I choose who I choose. Perhaps the choice I made is aligned the same way yours is. Kaseya its not just you I have a vendetta against! You stopped listening... Your interest is not for the people. Stale Technology needs a refresh every 5 years anyway... Labtech seems to be the best fit for this right now!
Saying good bye to India..
Caution: Statements made in this blog are not censored, not politically correct, and are of the writers opinion. If you cant take it dont read it.
Last week, I was asked if our company could call technician of a customer whom wanted offline and other critical alerts, even if its 2:00 AM in the morning. My immediate thought was heck no! I value my sleep. Most companies however in our industry will seek out the large Indian based call centers to take on this job. Since the very day I created my company, I took an oath never to put my customers though this.
I am an American, I am innovative, and I DON'T need India to step in. People should be ashamed at the way they do business today, laziness, lack of thought, and copying from one another, is the reason why America is in shambles today. We as a society have become complacent. We need to change our habits.
I took our new LabTech system and built the most amazing script to help with this issue. Using technology to help with our staffing issues is the most effective way to run any business. Greg Burk and other people know what I am talking about here, if you cant build a script to remediate then you will not be as successful as the people who can. I will also thank Greg here, due to his ability to make changes in the Labtech system on the fly with me, and update it with in 5 hours!! Hows that for effective RMM customer service!
Let me outline a bit as to the reason why I gave this blog the title I did:
Rather than having your RMM tool (that comes bundled with an indian based call center) call you and speak in an Indian voice without any form of other remediation in the middle of the night, to tell you that a customers server is offline. Only then to call you again because the last person didnt create a ticket, or update the ticket.. can become the most annoying cycle. See funny video here:
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8UKZyNnF3c)
People we dont need to spend more money to achieve these results... in fact we can do better. Better yet its MADE IN AMERICA.
With Labtech software, I was able to create a script that reads LabTech tickets sent in from someone's Kaseya server the offline alerts.
Now this has many more uses as well (not just for fixing Kaseya issues) , we have this for all native Labtech critical alerts, as well as for customer based emergencies. (utilizing Phone Tag for this)
- This Script verifies its the correct company
- Places a call to the first technician in the list (grabbed from the Labtech SQL database)
- Waits for a response from this person (press 1 to acknowledge, press 2 to receive a txt message)
- The script depending on the action does its task then updates the ticket in Labtech (which updates ConnectWise)
- If the call was placed and got a voice message, then it continues to the next person, also updating the ticket stating a call was placed to...
- If the call was acknowledged then the ticket closes the loop, updating all actions placed.
- End result customer is totally stoked!
Further because this is a machine, I have programmed what I want it to do, you cant program an Indian based call center!
This is a work in progress, and I will update readers when the script is done. ( I may post in the Labtech Forums) Here is an example of the output.
Diamond in the rough
For those of you interested, I have been feeling a bit overwhelmed with the idea that Kaseya cannot be the only RMM that can produce the results I am looking for.
Recently I have asked Kaseya to stop purging and removing my +++SQLCMD: variable from my scripts. I have had to edit a file on my Kaseya server to stop them from doing this. (Which by the way anyone interested in knowing how I can help you). I am tired of feeling like I need to defend what I do and not going to let a company like Kaseya dictate how I run my business. So I have started to look for alternatives.
I have started a topic on Linked in as well regarding this subject and today I posted:
I am looking at Labtech as the second choice if Kaseya does not add a Script option for running RAW sql commands. For anyone looking Labtech has this function, they have some short comings but in the long run I believe they are the Diamond in the rough. Ultimately I can see changing as they are half the cost, and are listening to people like us to build the best RMM.
I have a Con Call with Labtech and a few other strategic partners this Friday to demo my SLA system that I have been running for about 2 years, I have asked Kaseya to add this system 4 years ago... Imagine running your RMM on autopilot (mine does!) How many people are plagued with Agents falling out of compliance...etc, how many people have Vipre AV (the best AV for now) auto install and auto schedule scripts and routines upon install? Seriously it’s not hard to do.. but requires SQL queries.
Anyone interested in what I am doing with my Kaseya server I would gladly share.
I think I will post a youtube video on a few of these topics, thoughts?
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- Saying good bye to India..
- Kaseya going direct to your customers…
- One Month into Labtech
