Key Points
How to Summarize Support Activity Without Relying on Ticket Counts
- Reframe Reporting Focus: Instead of focusing on ticket counts, highlight outcomes, SLA compliance, and impact to show true MSP service value.
- Measure Quality Over Quantity: To prove operational excellence, emphasize SLA metrics such as average response time and first-contact resolution.
- Communicate Value Through Outcomes: Replace ticket totals with summaries that show efficiency, reliability, and proactive support.
Some Managed Service Providers (MSPs) still rely on ticket counts to measure and present support activity reports. While useful and easy to track, tickets don’t necessarily provide enough context to present support activity accurately. For example, a low ticket count doesn’t necessarily equate to proactive work or efficiency gains.
Reframing support activity summaries around outcomes and impact lets MSPs communicate their value more clearly. This article will show you the most efficient way to summarize support activity reports without relying on ticket counts.
Summarizing support activity reports without ticket counts
To summarize support activity reports without ticket counts, you should highlight SLA performance, break down activities, include proactive or preventive work, tie support activity to outcomes, and standardize reporting and review.
📌 Prerequisites:
- A PSA or RMM system capable of tracking SLA compliance, categories, and resolution metrics
- Defined service outcomes tied to client priorities
- Templates for client-facing reports that emphasize impact over volume
Method 1: Highlight SLA performance instead of volume
This step highlights how well customers were supported rather than how much work was done, emphasizing quality over quantity.
📌 Use Case: A support manager wants to demonstrate consistent, high-quality service to leadership. By showcasing metrics such as % of tickets resolved within SLA, the manager can illustrate operational excellence and proactive customer care
Instead of showing how many tickets were resolved, focus on how they were handled. This approach provides more context around ticket quality rather than quantity. Make sure you include the following in your report:
- Percentage of tickets resolved within SLA
- Average response and resolution times
- First-contact resolution rate
⚠️ Warning: Ensure you provide context to SLA metrics to avoid misleading clients. (For more info, refer to: Things to look out for)
Method 2: Break down activity by category and business impact
This step provides the value of support efforts by breaking down activity by type and business impact.
📌 Use Case: A support director is preparing a quarterly business review (QBR) for executive leadership. Instead of reporting that the team handled 4,000 tickets, the director segments them by type and impact to better demonstrate the value of support efforts.
Categorize tickets and map them to business outcomes. Instead of viewing tickets as equals, differentiate them based on their nature, frequency, and criticality.
Compare password resets to infrastructure outages
Distinguishing these two shows the balance between user assistance and high-impact incidents. While password resets show consistent service reliability, resolving infrastructure outages demonstrates the team’s ability to minimize downtime and protect operations.
Recurring vs. one-time issues
Identifying repetitive issues helps pinpoint automation opportunities, self-service resources, or process improvements. Meanwhile, tracking one-time issues reflects the adaptability in handling unique and sudden challenges.
Business-critical vs. low-priority tickets
Categorize based on urgency and business risk to ensure resources are focused on where they matter most. High-priority incidents directly link to revenue or customer experience, while low-priority tickets showcase responsiveness.
Method 3: Include proactive and preventive work
This step lets MSPs demonstrate their roles as partners in maintaining business continuity through highlighting proactive and preventive work.
📌 Use Case: An MSP account manager is preparing a monthly performance report for a key client. They include proactive metrics, not just tickets resolved, to illustrate how maintenance protects their client’s operation.
Key areas to highlight:
Automated patch deployments completed
Demonstrates consistent upkeep of client systems to close security gaps, ensure compliance, and maintain optimal performance without user disruption.
Backup validation or recovery tests run
Shows that the MSP is well-prepared. Regular validation ensures data integrity, recovery readiness, and client confidence in continuity plans.
Vulnerabilities remediated before they became incidents
This metric communicates foresight and diligence. It also shows how proactive monitoring and remediation prevented potential disruptions or security breaches before they escalated.
⚠️ Warning: Support claims with audit trails to ensure clients don’t undervalue preventive work. (For more info, refer to: Things to look out for)
Method 4: Tie support activity to client business outcomes
This step lets MSPs bridge the gap between IT performance and organizational impact by connecting support activity directly to client outcomes.
📌 Use Case: A customer success manager prepares for a quarterly business review with a healthcare client. Instead of presenting raw numbers, they translate technical metrics into business outcomes to demonstrate how its services safeguard uptime.
Reduced downtime through incident resolution
Instead of reporting “15 priority incidents resolved,” reframe it as “We reduced downtime by resolving 15 priority incidents within SLA.”
Improved productivity through automation
Highlight efficiency gains by translating technical improvements into time or cost savings. For example, “Password reset automation freed up ~20 hours of employee productivity.”
Strengthened security posture through proactive action
Show how preventive work mitigated risk and supported compliance. For example, “Proactive patching closed 15 vulnerabilities flagged in last quarter’s scan.”
Method 5: Standardize reporting and review
This step standardizes how performance is reported and reviewed, letting MSPs ensure every client receives clear insights.
📌 Use Case: An MSP’s account management team adopts a unified reporting framework for all clients. Each quarter, they deliver reports using the same layout. During client review meetings, they discuss trends such as “average resolution time improved by 18%.”
Key components of a standardized reporting process include:
Use a consistent format across all clients
Implement a template for monthly or quarterly reports to ensure clients see the same key metrics, making comparisons and trend tracking easier.
Track trends over time to highlight improvement
Visualize performance across multiple reporting cycles. For example, show how the average resolution time decreased quarter over quarter.
Review summaries collaboratively with clients
Reviewing results together allows clients to validate what resonates most, provide feedback, and help shape future priorities to strengthen the partnership and ensure reports stay aligned with business goals.
Best practices when summarizing support activity reports
The following table shows the best practices to follow when summarizing support activity reports:
| Practice | Value Delivered |
| SLA-focused metrics | Demonstrates quality over quantity |
| Category and impact breakdowns | Provides context and transparency |
| Proactive service metrics | Highlights hidden value beyond tickets |
| Business outcome translation | Connects MSP work to client priorities |
| Standardized summaries | Ensures consistency and client recognition |
⚠️ Things to look out for when summarizing support activity reports
The table below provides an extended explanation of the risks you may encounter when summarizing support activity reports:
| Risks | Potential Consequences | Reversals |
| Overemphasis on SLA metrics without context | Misleading perception of performance | Combine SLA metrics with qualitative feedback. |
| Difficulty in measuring or quantifying preventive work | Clients may undervalue preventive work if not backed by evidence | Support claims with audit trails and measurable outcomes. |
| One-size-fits-all templates may overlook unique client needs | Reports may lose relevance or fail to resonate with decision-makers | Customize key sections while keeping structure consistent. |
NinjaOne services that help summarize support activity reports
MSPs can use NinjaOne to do the following:
Track SLA adherence and resolution times across clients
NinjaOne’s ticketing system supports strong SLA tracking and ticket automation. You can also configure ticket escalation rules and manage resolution times.
Generate proactive service reports
NinjaOne has comprehensive reporting features, including patch coverage reports, device health status reports, and scheduled reporting capabilities.
Store standardized report templates in NinjaOne Documentation
NinjaOne Documentation lets you create, customize, and store report templates. You can then share the reports with specific technician roles and download them as PDFs.
Automate monthly or quarterly support summaries
The scheduled reports feature enables automatic report generation. You can also set up the reports to be distributed automatically. Lastly, the reporting system supports filtering by organizations and locations.
Reframe support activity summaries based on outcomes and impact
MSPs can demonstrate how their support activities reduce risk and improve efficiency by focusing on SLA compliance, proactive work, and business outcomes. They can achieve this by replacing ticket totals with SLA and resolution metrics, and by categorizing and contextualizing support activity based on its business impact.
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