Let’s face it. If your remote monitoring and management (RMM) platform is just a glorified alert cannon that goes “Ding!” every time Karen forgets her Wi-Fi password, you’re doing it wrong.
An RMM tool should be your secret weapon — the Batcomputer of your MSP. But too many providers either underutilize it, overconfigure it, or worse, ignore it entirely until a server catches fire and starts texting the intern.
10 Ways to Level Up your MSP
Here’s how to tighten the bolts, quiet the noise, and make your RMM work smarter, not harder.
1. Alert Fatigue Is Real. Silence the Chaos.
Ever feel like your RMM is auditioning for the role of Most Annoying Slack Notification of the Year? Default settings are a trap. Customize alerts so you only hear from your RMM when it’s truly important, like when a backup fails. Not when Sharon’s laptop goes to sleep.
Pro Tip: Group similar endpoints and apply templated policies. Alert on trends, not flukes.
2. Automate Like a Boss
Patching, disk cleanup, service restarts. If you’re still doing these manually, welcome to 2009. Automate the heck out of your maintenance tasks.
Bonus: Your clients think you’re working overtime. You’re actually watching reruns of The Office. Win-win.
3. Script It ‘Til You Make It
Your RMM isn’t just a watchdog. It’s a Swiss Army knife. Use it to push custom scripts for proactive fixes, whether it’s killing rogue processes or checking for outdated antivirus software.
Don’t know scripting? Learn. Or at least hire someone who thinks in PowerShell like it’s a second language.
4. Integrate or Disintegrate
Your RMM should talk to your PSA, documentation platform, and even your billing system. If your stack isn’t playing nicely together, you’re losing time and probably a few marbles.
Rule of Thumb: If you’re copy-pasting info between tools, either your integration or your workflow is broken.
5. Document Like You Mean It
Document every policy, script, and exception. Otherwise, your future self (or the poor tech who inherited your setup) is going to invent creative new curse words.
Christopher Barber
Bonus: Documentation helps when you want to scale. It also helps when you want to pretend you’re scaling while you’re really at Taco Tuesday.
6. Train Your Team Like Jedi, Not Stormtroopers
A powerful RMM in untrained hands is like giving a lightsaber to a raccoon. Invest in training, run simulations, and hold your team accountable for process consistency.
Pro Tip: Training isn’t just about avoiding chaos. It’s about consistency. When everyone follows the same playbook, escalations drop and clients stop getting six different answers to the same question. Less confusion = more credibility.
7. Review. Refine. Repeat.
Your RMM setup isn’t “set it and forget it.” Regularly review logs, audit tasks, and tweak policies. This is especially true as client needs shift. You know that one client’s nephew will download something dumb. Again.
Hot Take: Think of it like going to the gym. You don’t just buy a membership and get fit. Regular RMM tune-ups keep you lean, mean, and competitive. Skip them, and suddenly your platform is rocking a dad bod.
8. Don’t Just Monitor. Measure.
Use your RMM data to generate actual insights. Track KPIs like patch success rates, system uptime, or average response times. Then, use those stats to improve service or, better yet, show value to clients.
Pro Move: Create monthly reports that actually mean something. Don’t just generate charts that look like Pac-Man had a breakdown.
9. Test Before You Trust
Rolling out a new script or update? Don’t just YOLO it across your entire client base. Create a sandbox environment or test group to validate it first.
Otherwise: Congrats, you just rebooted 47 production servers because of a missing semicolon. Good luck with that.
10. Customize for Clients, Not Chaos
Standardization is great. But remember that different clients have different needs. Build client-specific profiles that account for business hours, critical systems, and preferred communication methods.
Think of It Like This: One size fits all only works for ponchos and bad marketing emails.
RMM Should Make You Look Like a Genius
If your clients think you have a sixth sense for catching problems before they happen, perfect. That’s the goal. A well-optimized RMM shifts you from reactive to predictive, from firefighter to fortune teller.
Now, go forth, automate wisely, and remember: Alerts are like exes. If you hear from too many too often, it’s probably time to change your settings.
Christopher Barber is chief nerd at Cheaper Than A Geek, and a member of The ASCII Group. Cheaper Than A Geek was selected as one of ChannelPro’s Top 20 MSPs for 2025.
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