Chapter 5: Understanding Metrics

Utilization Rate

The average time spent handling incidents and requests per month divided by the total time an analyst is available to work in hours.

Customer Effort Score

Measures the amount of effort the customer had to invest in order to interact with the support organization and get their issue resolved.

Analyst Satisfaction Level

Measures the analyst's satisfaction with their job. A variety of measurement methods are available to measure employee satisfaction but ultimately, this is a metric designed to understand the overall engagement and satisfaction of employees,

Customer Satisfaction Level

Measures the customer's satisfaction of support services. A variety of measurement methods are available to measure customer satisfaction but ultimately, this is a metric designed to understand the overall satisfaction of the customer with the service provided, the satisfaction of the support center, or satisfaction of a specific ticket/resolution.

Customer Net Promoter Score

Measures the probability of a customer referring your business to someone. It is not intended to not measure the short-term happiness of a customer, but rather the service provided to the customer over a time period and based on consistency.

Customer Satisfaction Score

Measures the short-term happiness of your customers based on the most recent transaction. The scale typically ranges from (1) highly unsatisfied to (5) highly satisfied.

Measurement

A quantifiable express of performance collected during the execution of activities. In order for a support organization to provide consistent, high-quality service and support it must identify what gets measured, why it gets measured and how often it should be measured.

Quality Assurance

A systematic way of ensuring that all the activities necessary to design, develop, and implement services that satisfy the requirements of the organization and of customers take place as planned.

Key Performance Indicator

A type of metric that measures progress toward achieving one's goals and objectives.

Dashboard

A visual mechanism for displaying business-critical information.

Metric

Any measurement of performance, such as: cost, efficiency, effectiveness and quality.

Customer Satisfaction Surveys

Evaluate the customer's satisfaction with the service and support center or ticket resolution and interaction with the support center analyst.

Analyst Satisfaction Surveys

Evaluate the employee's satisfaction to ensure retention and identify potential improvements.

Quality Monitoring Of Interactions

Evaluate the quality of support interactions to help identify areas of improvement and ensure the customer's needs are met.

On-going Surveys

Surveys that are completed as soon as possible after an incident is closed and usually measure the quality of a single incident or interaction. These surveys are typically short (e.g., 3-5 questions) and can be completed quickly.

Mean Time To Resolve

The average amount of time between the discovery or report of a failure or fault until the incident is marked "resolved" as agreed upon by the customer. Also known as Mean Time to Restore Service (MTRS).

Average Handle Time

The average amount of time spent in contact with the customer; usually timed from when the contact is sent to the analyst to the time it is closed, including any customer hold time when providing phone support.

Average Response Time

The average amount of time that a customer is waiting before the contact is answered.

Mean Time To Repair

The average amount of time to repair a failed component, device, or service. Measured from the point of failure to time or repair - does not include restore time.

First Contact Resolution Rate

The percentage at which a single contact is resolved to the customer's satisfaction via the initial contact, and no further action is required. Calculating FCR requires that each contact channel have a clear definition of what constitutes a transaction between the support analyst and the customer.

Abandonment Rate

The percentage of contacts that terminate (i.e., hang up) before answered - usually measured at intervals.

Service Level

The percentage of incidents handled within a defined service level target - measures the service and support center's ability to deliver the standard of service agreed upon in the Service Level Agreement (SLA).

First Level Resolution Rate

The percentage of incidents resolved at first level, but not on "first contact." Another resource within the level assisted in the resolution, but no functional or hierarchical escalation was performed.