Cause-and-Effect for Service Desk KPIs | IT Service Desk Metrics
This month we depart from our usual format, and instead of discussing a single IT Service Desk metric I will explore the cause-and-effect relationships between IT service desk KPIs. Many of us have heard the sage advice “You can’t manage what you don’t measure.” This is particularly true for the service desk, where effective performance measurement is not just a necessity, but a prerequisite for effective decision-making. Despite the widespread belief in this statement, few service desks use KPIs to their full potential. In fact the vast majority of service desks use metrics to track and trend their performance – but nothing more! Unfortunately, in this mode a service desk misses the real value of performance measurement by failing to exploit the diagnostic capabilities of KPIs. But the true potential of KPIs can only be unlocked when they are used holistically, not just to measure performance, but also to diagnose and understand the underlying drivers of performance. The key to using KPIs diagnostically is to understand their cause-and-effect relationships. You can think of these relationships as a linkage where all of the KPIs are interconnected. When one KPI moves up or down, other KPIs invariably move with it. Understanding this linkage is enormously powerful because it provides insight into the levers you can pull to achieve desired outcomes.Download This Article Forward To A Friend
The diagram in Figure 1 represents the service desk KPI linkage, and will be central to our discussion today. The metrics shown in red have been the subject of past Metric of the Month articles, which can be found in the archives of the Industry Insider.
Service Desk KPIs Figure 1: Service Desk Cause-and-Effect Diagram
The Foundation Metrics
Virtually everything a service desk does can be viewed through the lens of cost and quality. Will this new technology reduce my costs? Will this new process improve customer satisfaction? This insight is crucial because it greatly simplifies decision-making on the service desk. Any undertaking that does not have the long-term effect of improving customer satisfaction, reducing costs, or both, is simply not worth doing. This is why cost per ticket and customer satisfaction are known as the foundation metrics. These metrics are also very useful for telling the story of service desk performance. Most people instinctively understand cost and customer satisfaction, so it is easy to have a discussion about service desk performance in the context of these metrics. It is important to note, however, that the foundation metrics cannot be directly controlled. Instead, they are controlled through their underlying drivers.The Underlying Drivers
Every KPI in the service desk is either directly or indirectly connected to cost per ticket and customer satisfaction. Those that directly impact the foundation metrics are called the underlying drivers, and include agent utilization, first contact resolution rate, and agent job satisfaction. Improvements in any of these metrics result in corresponding improvements in the foundation metrics. But unlike the foundation metrics, which cannot be directly controlled, the underlying drivers can be directly controlled. In fact this is where you have the greatest leverage to impact the cost and quality of your service desk. If a service desk is struggling with high costs, for example, reducing the cost per ticket can often be achieved by increasing agent utilization or by reducing agent absenteeism and turnover. Likewise, if the goal of the service desk is to improve customer satisfaction, that can often be achieved by improving first contact resolution rate or call quality. The cause-and-effect relationship between first contact resolution rate and customer satisfaction has been discussed in prior Metric of the Month articles, and is shown in figure 2.Service Desk KPIs Figure 2: First Contact Resolution Rate vs. Customer Satisfaction
The Bellwether Metrics
Agent satisfaction and agent training hours are considered bellwether metrics because they are at the base of the KPI cause-and-effect diagram, and impact virtually every other metric in the service desk. Any movement in the bellwether metrics will be felt throughout the KPI linkage, and will eventually have an impact on the foundation metrics. If I know the agent satisfaction and training hours for a service desk, I can almost always predict what the cost and customer satisfaction will be. High levels of agent job satisfaction translate into lower absenteeism and turnover, which then translates into lower cost. Likewise training hours that are above average almost always have the effect of producing higher first contact resolution rates and call quality, which then drives higher customer satisfaction levels. Moreover, training hours are also one of the key drivers of agent job satisfaction, and therefore represent a high leverage opportunity for a service desk to improve both its cost and quality performance. Figure 3 below shows the impact of training hours on agent job satisfaction.Service Desk KPIs Figure 3: Agent Training Hours vs. Agent Job Satisfaction
