Service Desk Metrics & KPIs Evaluation
If you are looking for something more prescriptive to help kick-start your evaluation of a help desk's capabilities, then the following is an 'out of the box' starter set of evaluation metrics & questions you might wish to apply.
Ticket Volume
How many tickets are received daily, weekly, and monthly?
How does the current period compare to previous periods?
First Response Time
What is the average time it takes for a customer to receive the initial response?
Are there any fluctuations in this response time?
Resolution Time
What is the average time taken to resolve a ticket?
Are there tickets that are taking significantly longer than average to resolve? If so, what are the common factors?
Customer Satisfaction
How satisfied are customers with the resolution of their issues (usually obtained through a survey)?
Are there common factors in instances where customer satisfaction is particularly high or low?
First Contact Resolution Rate
What percentage of tickets are resolved in the first interaction?
Are there common issues that are not being resolved at the first contact?
Escalation Rate
What percentage of tickets are escalated to higher support tiers?
What are the most common reasons for escalations?
Agent Utilisation
How much time are agents spending on active tickets vs idle time?
Is there a balance between workload and idle time, or is there room for improvement?
Backlog
How many tickets are left unresolved at the end of a day, week, or month?
What are the trends in backlog volume?
Ticket Channel
What channels (email, phone, chat, etc.) are tickets coming from?
Are there channels with particularly high or low resolution rates or customer satisfaction?
Service Level Agreement (SLA) Compliance
What percentage of tickets are resolved within the agreed-upon SLA?
What factors contribute to SLA violations?
Analysis
For each of these metrics, consider the following:
Metric Analysis:
Current Status: Describe the current performance based on the metric.
Benchmark/Goal: Describe what an ideal performance would look like.
Gaps: Identify gaps between current performance and the ideal state.
Cause of Gap: Analyse and identify potential causes for the identified gaps.
Proposed Improvement Plan: Propose strategies or actions to close the gap and improve performance.
Responsible Person/Team: Assign who will be responsible for implementing the improvement plan.
Timeline for Improvement: Set a realistic timeline to achieve the proposed improvement.
Follow-up/Review Date: Set a date to review progress towards the improvement goal.
Application
The above data could help you with the following assessments;
Identify Training Needs: If certain types of tickets are frequently escalated or have long resolution times, there may be a need for additional training for the help desk team in those areas.
Process Improvement: If there are systematic issues causing high volumes of certain types of tickets, you may need to refine your processes or even collaborate with other departments to fix the underlying issue.
Staffing Decisions: If your help desk team is consistently overworked (high agent utilisation) or underworked (low agent utilisation), you may need to adjust staffing levels or schedules.
SLA Review: If SLA compliance is low, it may be necessary to renegotiate SLAs or improve efficiency to meet existing SLAs.
Technological Investment: If certain channels consistently perform poorly, it might be worth investing in new tools or software to improve service delivery through those channels.
Customer Satisfaction: Understanding which aspects of your service lead to high customer satisfaction can help you to emphasise those areas. Similarly, identifying areas leading to dissatisfaction can guide improvement efforts.
Performance Reviews and Incentives: The information from this analysis can be used in performance reviews, identifying top performers and areas of improvement for each team member. You can also use it to set targets and incentives for your team.
Help Desk Strategy: Over time, analysing these metrics can help shape the overall strategy for your help desk, such as deciding to specialise in certain areas, expanding the team, or investing in automation.
