12 things to cover in your managed services agreements

Have you ever opened up a product with ‘some assembly required’ that failed to include instructions (or included them, but only in a language you don’t understand)? So frustrating. Sadly, many clients feel the same way about their managed services agreements.

And that’s not good for your profit potential in this practice area of your business.

As a technology solution provider (TSP), you want to build a relationship and position yourself as a trusted advisor. Make agreement terms clear and concise—no confusing jargon. The better your agreement, the more you and your clients benefit.

6 benefits of creating managed services agreements

Developing a managed services agreement (MSA) is often the first thing that a TSP does to prepare for delivering services to a prospective client. It helps you:

  1. Identify what hardware, users, vendors, and services are covered, as well as those that aren’t.
  2. Clearly document the managed service roles and responsibilities for the client and the TSP.
  3. Accurately represent the clients’ existing environments.
  4. Define environmental prerequisites for service.
  5. Establish a baseline environment.
  6. Create a framework to ensure profitability.
Managed services agreement template: what to include

The agreement should embody your service-level agreement (SLA), prioritization process, response times, termination clause, limitation of liability, and a definition of support tiers and your service desk escalation process. Plus, it should reflect your labor rates or fees for requested services that fall outside of flat-fee support. Here are the top 12 things you should clearly outline in your managed services agreements:

  1. Client terms and conditions. Identify the client and the primary contact, along with primary and after hours contact information. Clearly state the price, payment terms (net 10, net 30, etc.), and the length of the contract. What specific day does the contract start? When does it end? Does it auto-renew? This should all be clearly outlined in the terms and conditions.
  2. Services. Clearly identify what’s covered, including which systems you support and don’t. For example, if they have a Windows® 2000 machine that you’ve identified and communicated as a security risk and they choose to not remediate, you can outline that it’s not within the scope of your service. Make sure it’s clear who’s responsible for what between you and your customer.

While this list scratches the surface of what to include in a managed services agreement, it provides a strong foundation for MSAs that satisfy clients and build your business. If you'd prefer to have a plain-Jane managed services agreement with only the standard terms and conditions make sure you're covering all these extra specifics outlined above in an addendum.