Technician Utilization for Desktop Support | Metric of the Month
One goal of every business is to achieve the highest possible quality at the lowest possible cost. It stands to reason, therefore, that cost and quality should be measured on an ongoing basis. In fact, many would argue that cost and quality are the only two things that really matter in a service and support organization. In past articles MetricNet has discussed the importance of using metrics as a diagnostic tool to improve performance. So we have to ask ourselves, if cost per ticket is one of the foundation metrics for desktop support, how can we affect it? How can we improve it? What are the primary levers we have to manage cost? Desktop support is a labor-intensive function. Technician salaries and benefits make up more than 60% of all costs for the average desktop support group. And when you consider the salaries and benefits for non-technicians – e.g. supervisors, team leads, QA/QC, trainers, and workforce schedulers – approximately 74% of all desktop support costs are personnel related, as shown in Figure 1 below. Labor productivity is therefore the biggest lever we have to manage and control desktop support costs.Download This Article Forward To A Friend
Let’s say, for example, that the technicians in a particular desktop support group handle an average of 60 incidents and 24 service requests per month. Let’s further assume that the average handle time for incidents is 32 minutes, and the average handle time for service requests is 59 minutes. Let’s also assume an average travel time per ticket of 41 minutes. Additionally, these technicians work an average of 21.5 days per month, and their work day is 7.5 hours after subtracting lunch and break times. The simplified utilization formula above would work out to the following:
Once again, this is not a perfect measure of technician utilization, but it is quick and easy, and gets you within 5% of the true technician utilization figure.
Figure 1: Expense Breakdown for Desktop Support
Figure 2: Technician Utilization vs. Cost per Ticket
Let’s say, for example, that the technicians in a particular desktop support group handle an average of 60 incidents and 24 service requests per month. Let’s further assume that the average handle time for incidents is 32 minutes, and the average handle time for service requests is 59 minutes. Let’s also assume an average travel time per ticket of 41 minutes. Additionally, these technicians work an average of 21.5 days per month, and their work day is 7.5 hours after subtracting lunch and break times. The simplified utilization formula above would work out to the following:
Once again, this is not a perfect measure of technician utilization, but it is quick and easy, and gets you within 5% of the true technician utilization figure.
Benchmark Ranges for Technician Utilization
MetricNet’s benchmarking database shows that the average technician utilization for desktop support groups worldwide is about 57%. This number varies widely, however, from a low of 26% to a high of 89%. Those at the low end of this range tend to be smaller organizations that are unable to achieve economies of scale, or desktop support groups that must overstaff to meet very aggressive service levels for response time. Those at the high end of this range tend to be larger organizations that have good scale economies, and can schedule their desktop support technicians very efficiently. Figure 3 below shows the distribution of technician utilization for a representative cross-section of desktop support groups worldwide.Figure 3: Benchmarking Statistics for Desktop Support Technician Utilization
