Industry Megatrends: A Benchmarking Perspective
20 Years of Help Desk Data More than 1,200 Help Desk Benchmarks Global Database 30 Key Performance Indicators Nearly 80 Industry Best Practices 1
Then and Now: 20 Years of Benchmarking Metrics Key Performance Indicator Monthly Contacts per End-User Industry Average Performance 1988 2007 0.79 1.92 Cost per Contact $9.57 $24.19 Average Handle Time 6:27 12:31 Resolved at Level 1 37% 71% Starting Agent Salaries (2007 dollars) Help Desk Cost per End-User per Year $27,280 $36,115 $97 $584 2
Help Desk as % of IT Budget The 20 Year Trend in Help Desk Budgets 6.0% 5.0% 4.0% A 7 Fold Increase in Help Desk Budgets! 3.9% 4.9% 3.0% 3.0% 2.0% 1.0% 0.7% 1.6% 0.0% 1988 1993 1998 2003 2007 Help Desk budgets have grown from 0.7% to 4.9% of corporate IT spending over the last 20 years. 3
The Underlying Megatrends 4
So What s Going on Here? Industry Megatrends: The Drivers Increasing awareness and understanding of help desk TCO (Total Cost of Ownership) Help Desk evolving from a support to a strategic role in the enterprise The growing importance of the help desk in shaping end-user opinions on IT 5
A Primer on Help Desk TCO Support Level Vendor Cost per Incident Resolved $466 Field Support (inside company) $138 Desktop Support $62 Level 2 (outside help desk) Help Desk $41 $24 6
The Help Desk Evolution Support Stage Growth Stage Strategic Stage Newer help desks and less evolved help desks are in this category Help desks in this stage are unable to anticipate or prepare for problems A reactive fire-fighting mentality prevails at this stage Call volume continually increases at this stage Customer satisfaction is the goal Heavy investments in training and technology characterize this stage An expert network of problem solvers is established outside the help desk Automation begins ACD, VRU, report generation, etc. Knowledge base established Call volume begins to level off The primary goal of a strategic help desks is the elimination of incoming calls Help desk anticipates problems and takes action to prevent occurrence A proactive mentality prevails Users are given tools to solve their own problems Call volume typically begins to decline at this stage Problem complexity increases Customer enthusiasm is the goal 7
% Saying Very Important What Drives End-User Perceptions of IT? 100% 80% 84% 60% 47% 40% 20% 31% 29% 22% 8% 0% Help Desk Desktop Support Network Outages Quality of Desktop Tools (Hardware and Software) Quality of Enterprise Applications IT Training 84% of end-users cite the help desk as a primary factor in shaping their opinions of corporate IT 8
The Resulting Megatrends 9
So What are the Implications? Industry Megatrends: The Result Increased Emphasis on First Contact Resolution (FCR) Strategic Application of Key Performance Indicators (KPI s) Investments in Agent Development New Models for Measuring Help Desk Value Renewed Emphasis on Internal Marketing Increased Starting Salaries for Agents 10
Customer Satisfaction Increased Emphasis on First Contact Resolution 100% 80% 60% 40% 20% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100% First Contact Resolution 11
COST PER CONTACT First Level Resolution is Closely Related HIGHER Total Cost per Contact Level 1 Cost per Contact Total Level X Cost LOWER FIRST LEVEL COST RESOLUTION RATE HIGHER As the Level 1 resolution rate increases, the cost per contact for Level 1 increases But the total cost per contact, including Level X costs, declines The cost of resolution at level X is typically 2X to 10X greater than at level 1 12
Scenario 1 The Economics of First Level Resolution Resolved At % # Cost/Contact Cost Help Desk 60.0% 3,000 $24 $120,000 Level 2 (outside Help Desk) 20.0% 1,000 $41 $41,000 Desktop Support 10.0% 500 $62 $31,000 Field Support (inside company) 8.0% 400 $138 $55,200 Vendor 2.0% 100 $466 $46,600 Total 100.0% 5,000 $293,800 Scenario 2 Resolved At % # Cost/Contact Cost Help Desk 70.0% 3,500 $26 $130,000 Level 2 (outside Help Desk) 15.0% 750 $41 $30,750 Desktop Support 7.5% 375 $62 $23,250 Field Support (inside company) 6.0% 300 $138 $41,400 Vendor 1.5% 75 $466 $34,950 Total 100.0% 5,000 $260,350 Scenario 2 yields a savings of $33,450/month or $401,400/year! 13
Strategic Application of Key Performance Indicators 1 Measure Model Component Description 4 2 Diagnose 1. Measure Measure help desk performance on an ongoing basis Implement 3 Customer Enthusiasm 2. Diagnose 3. Prescribe Benchmark performance and conduct a gap analysis Define actions to close the gap Prescribe 4. Implement Implement your action plan and improve performance 14
KPI s: Which Ones Really Matter? Cost Cost/contact Quality Productivity Call Handling Customer satisfaction Agent utilization First contact resolution rate Agent Agent Satisfaction Aggregate Balanced scorecard Cost vs. Quality Read MetricNet s whitepaper on Help Desk Performance Metrics. Go to www.metricnet.com to get your copy! 15
The Balanced Scorecard Metric Benchmark Performance Range Your Actual Metric Balanced Performance Metric Weighting Worst Case Best Case Performance Score Score Cost/Contact 25.0% $35.00 $6.00 $18.44 57.1% 14.3% Customer Satisfaction 25.0% 60.0% 97.0% 73.2% 35.7% 8.9% Agent Utilization 10.0% 30.0% 85.0% 51.7% 39.5% 3.9% First Contact Resolution Rate 15.0% 25.0% 95.0% 68.3% 61.9% 9.3% Agent Satisfaction 20.0% 34.6% 88.3% 74.0% 73.4% 14.7% Average Speed of Answer (sec) 5.0% 140.0 10.0 52.0 67.7% 3.4% Total 100.0% N/A N/A N/A N/A 54.5% Step 1 Six critical performance metrics have been selected for the scorecard Step 2 Each metric has been weighted according to its relative importance Step 3 For each performance metric, the highest and lowest performance levels in the benchmark are recorded Step 4 Your actual performance for each metric is recorded in this column Step 5 Your score for each metric is then calculated: (worst case actual performance) / (worst case best case) X 100 Step 6 Your balanced score for each metric is calculated: metric 16 score X weighting
The Benchmarking Methodology Your Help Desk Performance COMPARE Performance of Benchmarking Peer Group Determine How Best in Class Achieve Superiority Adopt Selected Practices of Best in Class Build a Sustainable Competitive Advantage The ultimate objective of benchmarking Read MetricNet s whitepaper on Help Desk Benchmarking. Go to www.metricnet.com to receive your copy! 17
Customer Satisfaction Call Abandonment Rate vs. Customer Satisfaction 100.0% 80.0% 60.0% 40.0% 20.0% 0.0% 0.0% 5.0% 10.0% 15.0% 20.0% 25.0% Call Abandonment Rate 18
Cost per Contact Call Abandonment Rate vs. Cost per Contact $50.00 $40.00 $30.00 $20.00 $10.00 $0.00 0.0% 5.0% 10.0% 15.0% 20.0% 25.0% 30.0% Call Abandonment Rate 19
Customer Satisfaction Cost per Contact Annual Agent Turnover First Call Resolution Investments in Agent Development 80.0% 100.0% 60.0% 80.0% 40.0% 60.0% 20.0% 0.0% 0 20 40 60 80 100 Veteran Agent Training Hours 40.0% 20.0% 0.0% 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 Veteran Agent Training Hours 100% $40.00 80% $32.00 $24.00 60% $16.00 40% $8.00 20% 0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 New Agent Training Hours $0.00 0 75 150 225 300 375 New Agent Training Hours 20
New Models for Measuring Help Desk Value Help Desk value models Cost of Service Money saved End user productivity Example: End User Productivity 2,600 end users generating 5,000 contacts per month Help desk saves each end user an average of 1 hour 10 minutes per contact The equivalent of 5,833 productive hours saved per month That s 33.7 FTE s per year or more than 1% of payroll! 21
PERCEIVED VALUE Renewed Emphasis on Internal Marketing HIGHER Perceived Value > Actual Value Perceived Value < Actual Value LOWER LOWER ACTUAL COST VALUE HIGHER 22
Cost per Contact Increased Starting Salaries for Agents $50.00 $40.00 $30.00 $20.00 $10.00 $0.00 $0 $10,000 $20,000 $30,000 $40,000 $50,000 $60,000 $70,000 Agent Starting Salaries 23
The Bottom Line on Help Desk Megatrends The Help Desk is now being managed as a strategic asset within the enterprise One that can reduce the overall cost of IT And dramatically improve the productivity of end-users Strategic Help Desks have a number of success factors in common 1. Integrated into the IT value chain 2. An understanding of the economics of Help Desk TCO 3. Active efforts to maximize First Contact, and First Level resolution rates 4. Use performance metrics diagnostically 5. Invest in agent training, coaching, and career pathing 6. Have active internal marketing efforts 7. And aggressively promote and communicate help desk value 24
About MetricNet: Your Benchmarking Partner 25
Your Presenter: Jeff Rumburg Jeff Rumburg is a co-founder and Managing Partner at MetricNet, LLC. Jeff is responsible for global strategy, product development, and financial operations for the company. As a leading expert in benchmarking and re-engineering, Mr. Rumburg authored a best selling book on benchmarking, and has been retained as a benchmarking expert by such well-known companies as IBM, Bank of America, and General Motors. Prior to co-founding MetricNet, Mr. Rumburg was president and founder of The Verity Group, an international management consulting firm specializing in IT benchmarking. While at Verity, Mr. Rumburg launched a number of syndicated benchmarking services that provided low cost benchmarks to more than 1,000 corporations worldwide. Mr. Rumburg has also held a number of positions of increasing responsibility at META Group, and Gartner, Inc. As a vice president at Gartner, Mr. Rumburg led a project team that reengineered Gartner's global benchmarking product suite. And as vice president at META Group, Mr. Rumburg's career was focused on business and product development for IT benchmarking. Mr. Rumburg's education includes an M.B.A. from the Harvard Business School, an M.S. magna cum laude in Operations Research from Stanford University, and a B.S. magna cum laude in Mechanical Engineering. He is author of A Hands-On Guide to Competitive Benchmarking: The Path to Continuous Quality and Productivity Improvement, and has taught graduate-level engineering and business courses. 26
More than 30 years of Benchmarking Experience MetricNet is dedicated to helping business people worldwide manage their organizations more efficiently and effectively. By providing benchmarks, performance metrics, scorecards and business data to managers in all industries and across all functional areas, MetricNet enables you to: Benchmark your performance vs. other companies inside and outside of your industry Track and trend your organization's performance Improve your performance using diagnostic benchmarks Establish performance targets that are in line with industry averages or best practices Drive accountability for key personnel using metrics-based performance goals Demonstrate measurable performance improvement over time 27
You Can Reach MetricNet By Phone 703-992-7559 On Our Website www.metricnet.com Or E-mail us info@metricnet.com 28
Thank You! We look forward to serving you! 29