Daily Service Desk Metrics

The service desk or help desk is a high transaction function. In a perfect world, every case would be resolved in 15 minutes or less. While this is a lofty goal, it demonstrates the transactional characteristics of the service desk.

To keep such transactional work on track, it is not sufficient to have a monthly or weekly meeting to review performance. To be successful you need a daily view of performance metrics.

What metrics should be reviewed daily?

• Critical incidents
• Non-critical case priorities by support team
• Count of open cases in individual's queues
• Service level performance
  
• Case aging

It is important that you automate these metrics quickly, since manually generating them every day will lead to putting them on the back burner when workload increases. Look at options in your help case management system or at external reporting tools that will send you daily reports via email.

But wait. There's more to do. Pulling these daily metrics are only the starting point. You need to set up a daily forum for reviewing the metrics with the managers of your support teams. This holds everyone accountable to meet their goals and to prioritize according to predefined standards. This meeting works best if it is held first thing in the morning to help set the course for the day.

Keep an eye on the daily performance metrics. Your monthly performance will look good, and what's more, your customers will be satisfied.

-Steve McElwee