His own experiences help Tribu develop an AI tool for IT partners

Having worked as an MSP (Managed Service Provider) for 17 years, Lucas Meadowcroft knows what IT partners face and what their biggest challenges are. With this experience, he created the company Tribu at the beginning of last year. He wants to make the work of IT partners and their helpdesk employees easier, with the help of artificial intelligence (AI), among other things.

Originally from Brisbane (Australia), Lucas Meadowcroft speaks enthusiastically about Tribu, the company he co-founded which was founded last year and of which he is CEO and “Head of Growth”. Tribute’s goal seems ambitious: to push the boundaries of technology and innovation through the power of machine learning and automation so that MSPs and IT support departments around the world can deliver a excellent customer service.

Two challenges
There is a story behind this beautifully worded lens. Meadowcroft worked for MSPs for 17 years. “Other people in this company have a lot of IT experience as well. While starting, creating, and scaling an MSP, we noticed two issues. We are trying to resolve both of these issues with Tribune.

These two challenges arise on the IT support side. “Computer technicians are incredibly intelligent people who prefer to focus entirely on solving complex technical problems undisturbed. They don’t really want customer contact and usually aren’t good at it. There are certainly exceptions, but most of them are true. It makes it harder to grow.
The second challenge concerns the work of the same technicians. Meadowcroft talks about level 1 support, the most basic level of technical help. “Techs don’t want to deal with level 1 support, at least not for their entire career. At the same time, seventy percent of everything an MSP has to manage is level 1 work. It’s difficult for MSPs: they want to keep their current technicians and continue to offer challenges, but also hire. new people who can do level 1 support. “

The goal of resolving these two issues initially resulted in creating an integration of Microsoft Teams with MSP platforms such as ConnectWise and Autotask PSA. This facilitates collaboration for partners and also facilitates ticket management. Customers all over the world are now using this integration. It therefore remains an important product for Tribu.

AI model
But he and his colleagues wanted more, so they went further. They’ve built an AI model that Meadowcroft says is unique in the world. “We were already using AI when creating the onboarding teams, and we’ve built on that for the past 12 months. The AI ​​model contains four functions that together ensure that the work of MSPs, service delivery managers and technicians can be done much more efficiently, he says.

Ticket classification is automated using the AI ​​model, so this less difficult task no longer has to be performed by people. It takes a lot of work away from IT partners. Tribune currently achieves 92 percent accuracy. The second function is text generation: a text of content generated by the AI ​​in response to support questions. As a result, technicians don’t have to talk to customers as much. The third function is called IT recommenders. This helps technicians, among other things, to determine the ideal order to process tickets. Finally, Heuritics provides quick action to resolve computer issues. Meadowcroft: “The combination provides a comprehensive solution for an IT partner’s help desk. One of the peculiarities is that all data is processed live.

The company therefore has two components: the Teams integration and the AI ​​model. “Some customers use both, others use one of the two.” Thanks to this combination, Tribu is in fact suitable for any type of partner, from the real MSP to the more traditional reseller. The size of the business does not matter. “We are very scalable. Clients may have one employee or a few, but we also have clients with 200 employees and could be even bigger. We ensure greater efficiency of IT support. It doesn’t matter what such a department looks like.

Innovative Netherlands
The innovative character of Tribute is increasingly recognized. For example, he placed second in the pitch competition at IT Nation, ConnectWise’s major global event. Surprisingly, the Australian-born company quickly built up a solid customer base in Europe. “This has been the case since the very first customer,” explains Meadowcroft. “We have partners as customers in the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany and Spain. It wasn’t the original plan, but it just happened. “He has an explanation for the fact that growth in Europe is faster than on his own continent.” Australia and New Zealand are quite conservative in When it comes to technology. People here prefer to wait two or three years for a product to be fully developed. I notice that in countries like the Netherlands and Belgium, they are naturally much more innovative and curious about new technologies.

The latter, he says, is a good thing. “By nature, everyone is afraid of change. IT companies also prefer to do what they have always done. But change is necessary. Developments such as artificial intelligence will lead to major changes in the years to come. If you don’t accept this, you are missing something. “

Tribune recently started working with distributor CloudLand in the Benelux. “They can be of great value in this region with their network,” Meadowcroft said. “In the area of ​​sales and onboarding, but also in making sure that our name is better known and that we get even more fans.”

By: Johan van Leeuwen