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IT Service Desk Metrics

  • 6 June 2022
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manns
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  • manns
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I’m just writing something on IT service desk metrics not being SMART because they miss the need for “bigger picture” relevancy, i.e. the need to be relevant. 

What do you see as your IT service desk’s best and worst metrics (in terms of value, not performance)?

Cheers, Stephen || https://ITSM.tools

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manns
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Hey @manns, great question! Some of our best metrics are gauging what we call “First Call Resolution”. This percentage is a strong indicator in how well our Agents know their stuff or know where to find answers. Gives us insight to further training necessary and where we can automate processes. A second solid metric relates call ownership. For a service desk it is important to make sure that the end users are getting the right person for the job when they call.

Some poor metrics (not necessarily bad metrics just areas we need to work on) that we struggle with are average age of open tickets. This is hard to get accurate without strict policy and procedures in place for handling tickets. Secondly, our CSAT metrics. We need to do a better job of managing how we gain feedback from our users and use that to get a better insight to the health of our service desk.

Hope this helps, may not have been what you meant but I’ll drop my two cents any time I can lol :)

@zachary.king I’m not sure what happened to the original reply I started (maybe I didn’t press the button?).

FCR has its merits if used in the context of other metrics such as average handling time and CSAT. For some, it can override the end-user perspective though as the target becomes more important than the end-user’s time and productivity.

CSAT itself is a tricky one though with it not uncommon for low response rates, people only replying if really happy or unhappy, and questions that relate to the mechanics of IT support rather than the outcomes.

Cheers, Stephen || https://ITSM.tools
manns
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@manns While not a specific metric, one of the biggest risks is if the service desk and/or management team focuses only on the metrics instead of outcomes. I have heard of numerous stories where agents would just close tickets to make the numbers, instead of really verifying with the requester that the issue was solved to their satisfaction. Relative to this, one of the metrics I like to reference is the CSAT score, and specifically the comments that requesters leave. I can usually spot trends in how our agents perform this way. This system can be gamed too, as we can all recall a waiter or grocery clerk practically begging us for a 5 star rating and no less, because management will come down hard on them if they don't have a perfect score…

@keefe.andrews only just been notified of this for some reason :)

When the metrics are viewed as the goals is not a great situation to put service desk (or any) staff in. Sadly though, my perception is that this happens far too much and leaves people changing behaviors to meet the metric target rather than doing what is in the organization’s and end-user’s best interest.

Cheers, Stephen || https://ITSM.tools
zachary.king
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Hey @manns, great question! Some of our best metrics are gauging what we call “First Call Resolution”. This percentage is a strong indicator in how well our Agents know their stuff or know where to find answers. Gives us insight to further training necessary and where we can automate processes. A second solid metric relates call ownership. For a service desk it is important to make sure that the end users are getting the right person for the job when they call.

Some poor metrics (not necessarily bad metrics just areas we need to work on) that we struggle with are average age of open tickets. This is hard to get accurate without strict policy and procedures in place for handling tickets. Secondly, our CSAT metrics. We need to do a better job of managing how we gain feedback from our users and use that to get a better insight to the health of our service desk.

Hope this helps, may not have been what you meant but I’ll drop my two cents any time I can lol :)

- Zach
keefe.andrews
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@manns While not a specific metric, one of the biggest risks is if the service desk and/or management team focuses only on the metrics instead of outcomes. I have heard of numerous stories where agents would just close tickets to make the numbers, instead of really verifying with the requester that the issue was solved to their satisfaction. Relative to this, one of the metrics I like to reference is the CSAT score, and specifically the comments that requesters leave. I can usually spot trends in how our agents perform this way. This system can be gamed too, as we can all recall a waiter or grocery clerk practically begging us for a 5 star rating and no less, because management will come down hard on them if they don't have a perfect score…

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