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Generally, the things we can measure are the things that will see the most improvement. However, what things are usually measured? How will one know what will need to be measured?

Although there are numerous performance indicators that can be measured in regards to your IT help desk, service desk, customer support desk, etc. your team does not have to spend a significant amount of time measuring every indicator. As you begin to conduct research and dive deeper into your infrastructure, you will eventually come across the indicators that you find relevant.

When you find key performance indicators that are relevant to your software and your operations, you should measure those indicators. Measuring those indicators will give you the best chance to improve your overall business operations. The indicators that one business measures do not have to be the same indicators that you measure.

Downtime

When your help desk software goes down during the day, how much time is lost before the services are available again? Every business should have a goal of keeping downtime to a minimum. No business wants to lose customers and revenue because their operations were doing for a significant period of time.

When a help desk goes down, it can take as long as 12 hours to fully restore the services. In addition, it can take another 12 hours before the entire operations are restored completely, especially if there is hardware or equipment that needs to be replaced or repaired. If this much time passes before your operations are restored, can you imagine how much money you would lose?

What Can You Do To Limit Downtime?

Some of the things your business can do to ensure you are not constantly going through periods of downtime include the following:

• Plan properly so you can be prepared for any changes, upgrades, implementation, etc.
• Ensure your help desk team have been trained and are aware of the risks of infractions of agreements
• Ensure your help desk team members are aware of the implications of continuous periods of downtime
• Be prepared for any downtime and outages, even the outages you had no control over

There are numerous factors that can play an impact on downtime and business hours that have been lost. Any type of outage can have a significant impact on your most critical services and operations.

The Number of Support Tickets

Today, customers have a variety of ways to communicate with your business. Customers can reach out to a business through the following methods:

• phone
• online contact form
• social media
• chat

All of these communication channels will require the proper team and proper skills. When your support team is able to measure and track all of the customer requests, feedback, concerns. One of the goals your business should be to achieve maximum efficiency and effectiveness when it comes to your help desk support tickets.

When you notice changes when it comes to the volume or trends in support tickets, we encourage you to implement new services and strategies that will be able to support the support ticket trends. Having an understanding of the indicators and metrics will provide you with the information you need in regards to your ability to track and monitor the support tickets.

Resolving Support Tickets

Any indicator or metric that relates to how long it takes to resolve a ticket will provide you with the tools you need to understand things from the customer’s point of view. How long do your customers usually have to wait to receive a response? How long does it take to have their problems addressed and resolved?

When you notice that it is taking longer than expected to have a customer’s issue resolved from the first point of contact, we encourage you to take the necessary steps in finding where the problem lies. When you notice an increasing gap in resolution time, you may need to take some time to focus on using additional educational and training materials to improve the skills of your support team. Your help desk agents may need to improve their skills and their ability to respond to a ticket and address the ticket as soon as it was created.

Unexpected Changes

In business, there will always be expected changes and unexpected changes. As a result, it is recommended that one of the metrics that you measure is the changes that happen unexpectedly. As a business, there will be changes that are expected because you have spent the research and the time that was needed to plan for those changes. However, there will be changes in your business operations experience that are not expected.

We understand that there is no specific number of expected and unexpected changes that are allowable when it comes to your support desk and its foundation. However, when you begin to notice that your services and systems are constantly undergoing changes that you did not expect, we recommend that you measure this performance indicator.

Undergoing changes that are not expected could mean that you have not created the proper planning strategy for your business. These unexpected changes can also be an indicator that you are not effectively managing your processes. This can indicate that it is time to take the steps to better your planning, your strategies, and the implementation of the changes that you want to take place.

What performance metrics and indicators do you use to measure your help desk? When you are prepared to measure your help desk, you will be able to improve your overall operations and the level of customer service you offer.

When you measure your metrics and indicators and come to the conclusion that your help desk is not giving you the best chance to remain competitive in your industry, it could be time to make planned changes to your help desk software. It is vital to your business and your customers that you implement a service desk that will fulfil your requirements and allow you to reach the goals you have set for your business.