How an FAQ With Videos Saved My MSP (and My Sanity) From AYCE Ticket Abuse

When I first launched my MSP, I thought All You Can Eat (AYCE) IT support was a brilliant idea. “Flat-rate pricing! No unexpected bills! Unlimited support!” It sounded like a dream. And for the clients, it was.

For me? A total nightmare.

Turns out, when people hear “unlimited,” they take it very literally. At first, it was normal stuff—password resets, printer issues, Outlook crashes. But then came the absurd requests:

• “Can you show me how to do a mail merge?”
• “Can you log into my email and set my Out of Office reply for me?”
• “Can you help me pick a font for my PowerPoint?”

At some point, we stopped being an MSP and started feeling like highly overpaid personal assistants. Something had to change.

The Breaking Point

The moment I knew we had to fix this was when a client submitted a ticket that just said:

“Help. I deleted an icon from my desktop. Can you put it back?”

Not a program. Not a file. Just a shortcut. Gone. And now, an entire business day was on hold until we restored it.

I realized we needed a way to redirect these time-wasting tickets while still keeping clients happy. We couldn’t just tell them “no,” or they’d start questioning why they were paying us. But we also couldn’t keep holding their hands through every basic task.

The solution? A self-service FAQ with short, simple videos.

Step One: Creating the FAQ Based on Real Tickets

Instead of guessing what clients needed, we let our ticket queue decide. Every time we saw a pattern—like multiple people asking how to set up email forwarding—we turned it into a guide.

The process was simple:

1. If a tech answered the same question more than twice in a week, they had to create a short FAQ entry for it.
2. If they recorded a video walkthrough instead of writing it, we bought them lunch. (Bribery works, don’t judge.)
3. Once the FAQ was live, any future tickets on that issue would get an instant auto-response with the link.

At first, the techs hated it. Then they realized it meant they wouldn’t have to answer the same dumb question 500 times. Suddenly, FAQ entries were getting written at lightning speed.

Step Two: Making Clients Actually Use It

Just creating an FAQ isn’t enough. You have to train clients to use it instead of firing off a ticket.

We built it right into our client portal so it was always accessible. Then, we started redirecting low-value tickets with a friendly nudge:

“Hey [Client], great question! We actually have a quick video guide for this right here: [Insert Link]. Give it a try and let us know if you run into issues!”

Nine times out of ten, they figured it out themselves. Over time, they stopped submitting those tickets altogether.

For the stubborn ones who kept submitting the same requests, we had a trick:

• The first time? We walked them through it.
• The second time? We sent the FAQ link.
• The third time? We sent the FAQ link and added, “By the way, we also offer training services if you’d like a more in-depth session!”

It’s amazing how fast people learn when there’s a price tag attached.

Step Three: Using the FAQ to Grow the MSP

Once the FAQ was rolling, we realized it wasn’t just a defensive tool—it could actually help us win new business.

• Sales Pitch Enhancement: Instead of just saying, “We offer great support,” we could say, “We also provide a self-service portal so your team can solve minor issues instantly, without waiting on a ticket.”
• SEO Boost: We turned the best FAQs into public blog posts that brought in organic traffic. People searching “How to set up an Outlook Out of Office reply” would land on our site—right where we wanted them.
• Client Retention: The more clients used the portal, the more they got used to our tools and saw us as an essential part of their workflow.