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Service Desk Management - Metrics

Metrics should be established so that performance of the Service Desk can be evaluated at regular intervals. This is important to assess the health, maturity, efficiency, effectiveness and any opportunities to improve Service Desk operations.

Metrics for Service Desk performance must be realistic and carefully chosen. It is common to select those metrics that are easily available and that may seem to be a possible indication of performance; however, this can be misleading. For example, the total number of calls received by the Service Desk is not in itself an indication of either good or bad performance and may in fact be caused by events completely outside the control of the Service Desk - for example a particularly busy period for the organization, or the release of a new version of a major corporate system.

An increase in the number of calls to the Service Desk can indicate less reliable services over that period of time - but may also indicate increased user confidence in a Service Desk that is maturing, resulting in a higher likelihood that users will seek assistance rather than try to cope alone. For this type of metric to be reliable for reaching either conclusion, further comparison of previous periods for any Service Desk improvements implemented since the last measurement baseline, or service reliability changes, problems, etc. to isolate the true cause for the increase is needed.

Further analysis and more detailed metrics are therefore needed and must be examined over a period of time. These will include the call-handling statistics previously mentioned under telephony, and additionally:

  • The first-line resolution rate: the percentage of calls resolved at first line, without the need for escalation to other support groups. This is the figure often quoted by organizations as the primary measure of the Service Desks performance - and used for comparison purposes with the performance of other desks - but care is needed when making any comparisons. For greater accuracy and more valid comparisons this can be broken down further as follows:
    • The percentage of calls resolved during the first contact with the Service Desk, i.e. while the user is still on the telephone to report the call
    • The percentage of calls resolved by the Service Desk staff themselves without having to seek deeper support from other groups. Note: some desks will choose to co-locate or embed more technically skilled second-line staff with the Service Desk (see Incident Management for further details). In such cases it is important when making comparisons to also separate out (i) The percentage resolved by the Service Desk staff alone; and (ii) The percentage resolved by the first-line Service Desk staff and secondline support staff combined.
  • Average time to resolve an incident (when resolved at first line)
  • Average time to escalate an incident (where first-line resolution is not possible)
  • Average Service Desk cost of handling an incident. Two metrics should be considered here:
    • Total cost of the Service Desk divided by the number of calls. This will provide an average figure which is useful as an index and for planning purposes but does not accurately represent the relative costs of different types of calls
    • By calculating the percentage of call duration time on the desk overall and working out a cost per minute (total costs for the period divided by total call duration minutes') this can be used to calculate the cost for individual calls and give a more accurate figure.
    By evaluating the types of incidents with call duration, a more refined picture of cost per call by types arises and gives indication of which incident types tend to cost more to resolve and possible targets for improvements.
  • Percentage of customer or user updates conducted within target times, as defined in SLA targets
  • Average time to review and close a resolved call
  • The number of calls broken down by time of day and day of week, combined with the average call-time metric, is critical in determining the number of staff required.

Further general details on metrics and how they should be used to drive forward service quality is included in the Continual Service Improvement publication.

Other ITIL Processes

In order to have a good understanding of ITIL and the importance of configuration management, we first define what ITIL is: ITIL is literally a collection of documentation.

This documentation can help IT organizations implement the best practices. The documentation grows and grows as more successful techniques are documented and guidelines established for what can make others successful. The latest ITIL resources are published by the UK Office of Government Commerce (OGC).

Integrated service delivery refers to the need for Configuration Management, Change Management, Incident Management, Problem Management and Release Management processes that are linked together in a meaningful manner. For example, the process of releasing components to the live environment (the domain of Release Management) is also an issue for Configuration Management and Change Management whilst the Service Desk is primarily responsible for liaison between IT providers and the Users of services. This section highlights the links and the principal relationships between all the Service Management and other infrastructure management processes.

ITIL processes fall under Operational Layer or Tactical Layer, as follows:

Operational Layer: Configuration Management - Service Desk Management - Incident & Problem Management - Change Management - Release Management
Tactical Layer: Service Level Management - Availability Management - Capacity Management - Continuity Management - Financial Management