Increasing First Time Fix – A Service Improvement Priority

First Time Fix (FTF) is a great service management metric, as it’s the one that indicates the most gain in customer satisfaction if improved upon by a Service Desk.

First it’s worth defining and also worth pointing out how it differs from its close cousins, First Line Fix (FLF) and Service Desk Resolution (SDR):

All 3 metrics require each support ticket to be logged and resolved by the 1^st Line Service Desk.  But, as indicated in the table:

• SDR doesn’t require the ticket to have been handled only by 1^st Line – indeed, the ticket may have done the rounds through multiple resolver groups before finally being resolved by 1^st Line.  It also doesn’t require any prompt resolution of the ticket;
• FLF is a measure of tickets which have only been handled by 1^st Line, but, like SDR, not necessarily with any prompt resolution;
• FTF does require the ticket handling to be self-contained within 1^st Line and needs to have been resolved in one single motion without break or delay.

It’s easy to understand why FTF, if improved upon by a 1^st Line Service Desk function, is the metric which relates most to customer satisfaction – It’s the one that measures when end-users get what they need at the time of asking for it.

To be clear, a ticket that is resolved in ‘one single motion without break or delay’ will typically have to adhere to all of the following criteria:

• Be logged and resolved without the need to save, close and later re-open the ticket
• Be resolved by the analyst from his/her desk position
• Be resolved without seeking assistance from another colleague
• Be resolved quickly

Although this sounds like a lot to adhere to, most good service management tools can mark a resolved ticket at ‘FTF’ if logged and resolved without first being saved.  This will provide a reasonable basis upon which to report FTF, if coupled with team processes which are geared to support FTF resolution.

In simple terms, in order to improve the FTF rate of a 1^st Line Service Desk function, the team needs to do as much as it can, on its own, and promptly.

Improving your FTF rate, and thereby improving the service to your customers, can usually be achieved to 2 phases:

• Tool Up and Up Skill – A Service Desk will need a number of tools in order to able to resolve the maximum number of tickets from their desk position.  Naturally, this will include the Service Management tool, used from handling all incidents and requests, but will also include a means of remotely controlling a user’s workstation, and the administrative tools (and related permissions) to perform all appropriate administrative duties. To ‘up skill’ means to furnish support analysts with what they need to know to work more efficiently.  This could include formal training but is more likely accomplished by the provision of internal technical workshops and the creation of knowledge base articles which are quickly available to an analyst when needed.

• Continual Drive – Once the Service Desk is working in a manner that supports the concept of FTF, then a plan may be developed to continually increase the volume of tickets resolved in this way.  Through measurement and analysis, a pecking order of ticket types can be developed which, if addressed one by one and geared up to be resolved under FTF conditions, will bring the resolution of more support activities right to the front of the service.

As already stated, FTF is an indicator of customer satisfaction and so to increase your FTF rate will benefit the organisation in a very noticeable way.  But FTF could also work for you in 2 additional ways:

• If more is being completed by 1^st Line support analysts, then it’s likely that the volume of 2^nd Line Desk-side support visits will reduce.  As the volume of tickets that can be resolved by a 1^st Line will be higher than those of 2^nd Line, then you may well be able to cut 2^nd Line head count whilst delivering a better service.
• In some environments, usually at bigger firms, there may be support activities performed by 3^rd Line resolver groups, which with the right training, tools and permissions, may be activities that can be brought forward in the support process to 1^st Line.  These might include administrative tasks for line-of-business applications which are only completed by the 3^rd Line team because no one has ever questioned if it can be done by someone else.  The possible cost saving comes by moving support activities like this from 3^rd Line system specialists to less expensive 1^st Line analysts.

An objection to providing higher FTF might be that the culture of the firm is such that it likes to receive its support via desk-side visits.  In truth, no user actually cares how they receive their support, as long as they get what they need, when they need it.  The call for desk-side support, I think, is a natural response made by people if they think their level of support will wane if a greater emphasis is placed on 1^st Line Support.  The answer to this objection is to ensure that your 1^st Line service is delivered well and which provides better response times than if sending an analyst to the user.

The plan to improve your FTF rate is best managed as part of a broader Continual Service Improvement Plan as it will take some time and will need to be factored alongside your other service management developments, but is certainly a high-gain activity worth pursuing.

Jon Reeve, Principal Consultant

This column appeared on ITSM Portal: http://www.itsmportal.com/columns/increasing-first-time-fix-%E2%80%93-service-improvement-priority

Are you Off-Sure about your IT Service Desk?

No matter the economic climate, or indeed within which industry they operate, organisations are constantly seeking to lower the cost of IT while also trying to improve performance. The problem is it can often seem impossible to achieve one without compromising on the other and in most cases, cost cutting will take prevalence, leading to a dip in service levels.

When things get tough the popularity of off-shoring inevitably increases, leading many decision-makers to consider sending the IT Service Desk off to India, China or Chile as a convenient solution financially – low-cost labour for high-level skills is how offshore service providers are advertising the service.

In reality things are not so straightforward. The primary reason for off-shoring is to reduce costs, but according to experts average cost savings only tend to lie between 10-15%, and what is more, additional costs can be created – research shows, in fact, that they can in some cases increase by 25%.

Hidden costs, cultural differences and low customer and user satisfaction are reasons which have made nearly 40% of UK companies surveyed by the NCC Evaluation Centre change their mind and either reverse the move – a phenomenon known as ‘back-shoring’ or ‘reverse off-shoring’ – or think about doing so in the near future. Once an organisation decides to reverse the decision, however, the process is not trouble-free. Of those who have taken services back in-house, 30% say they have found it ‘difficult’ and nearly half, 49%, ‘moderately difficult’. Disruptions and inefficiencies often lead to business loss, loss of client base and, more importantly, a loss of reputation – it is in fact always the client and not the provider which suffers the most damage in this sense.

Data security is another great concern in off-shoring. An ITV news programme recently uncovered a market for data stolen at offshore service providers: bank details and medical information could be easily bought for only a few pounds, often just from call centre workers. Of course information security breaches can happen even in-house, caused by internal staff; however, in off-shoring the risk is increased by the distance and the different culture and law which exist abroad.

Not a decision to be taken lightly, then. Organisations should realise that the IT Service Desk is a vital business tool and while outsourcing has its advantages, if they do it by off-shoring they are placing the face of their IT system on the other side of the planet, and in the hands of a provider that might not have the same business culture, ethics and regulations as they do.

So before thinking about off-shoring part or the whole IT department, organisations would be wise to take the time to think about why their IT is so expensive and what they could do to improve it, cutting down on costs without affecting quality, efficiency and security and moreover, not even having to move it from its existing location.

Here are some measures organisations could take in order to improve efficiency in the IT Service Desk while at the same time reducing costs:

Best practice implementation

Adoption of Best Practice is designed to make operations faster and more efficient, reducing downtime and preserving business continuity. The most common Best Practice in the UK is ITIL (Information Technology Infrastructure Library) which is divided into different disciplines – Change Management, Risk Management, Incident Management to name but a few.

ITIL processes can be seen as a guide to help organisations plan the most efficient routes when dealing with different types of issues, from everyday standard operations and common incidents up to rarer events and even emergencies.

Whilst incident management seems to be easily recognised as a useful tool, other applications of ITIL are unfairly seen by many as a nice to have. But implementing best practice processes to deal with change management, for example, is particularly important: if changes are carried out in a random way they can cause disruptions and inefficiencies, and when a user cannot access resources or has limited use of important tools to carry out their work, business loss can occur – and not without cost.

Every minute of downtime is a minute of unpaid work, but costs can also extend to customer relationship and perhaps loss of client base if the inefficiencies are frequent or very severe.

Realignment of roles within the Service Desk

With Best Practice in place, attention turns to the set-up of resources on the Service Desk. A survey conducted by Plan-Net showed that the average IT Service Desk is composed of 35% first-line analysts, 48% second line and 17% third line. According to Gartner statistics, the average first-line fix costs between £7 and £25 whereas second line fixes normally vary from £24 to £170. Second and third line technicians have more specific skills, therefore their salaries are much higher than the ones of first line engineers; however, most incidents do not require such specific skills or even physical presence.

An efficient Service Desk will be able to resolve 70% of their calls remotely at first line level, reducing the need for face-to-face interventions by second line engineers. The perception of many within IT is that users prefer a face-to-face approach to a phone call or interaction with a machine, but in reality the culture is starting to change thanks to efficiency acquiring more importance within the business. With second-line fix costing up to 600% more, it is better to invest in a Service Desk that hits a 70% rate of first-time fix, users for the most part will be satisfied that their issues are fixed promptly and the business will go along way to seeing the holy grail of reduced costs and improved performance simultaneously.

From a recent survey carried out by Forrester for TeamQuest Corporation, it appears that 50% of organisations normally use two to five people to resolve a performance issue, and 35% of the participants are not able to resolve up to 75% of their application performance issues within 24 hours. Once you calculate the cost of number of staff involved multiplied by number of hours to fix the incident, it is not difficult to see where the costly problem lies. An efficient solution will allow IT to do more with less people, and faster.

Upskilling and Service Management toolset selection

Statistics show that the wider adoption of Best Practice processes and the arrival of new technologies are causing realignments of roles within the Service Desk. In many cases this also involves changes to the roles themselves, as the increased use of automated tools and virtualised solutions mean more complex fixes can be conducted remotely and at the first line. As this happens first line engineers will be required to have a broader knowledgebase and be able to deal with more issues without passing them on.

With all these advancements leading to a Service Desk that requires less resource (and therefore commands less cost) while driving up fix rates and therefore reducing downtime it seems less and less sensible for organisations to accept off-shore outsourcing contracts with Service Level Agreements (SLA’s) that guarantee a first-time fix rate of as little as 20% or 30% for a diminished price. It seems the popularity of such models lies only in organisations not being aware that quality and efficiency are something they can indeed afford – without the risk of off-shoring.

The adoption of a better toolset and the upskilling of first-line analysts, especially through ITIL-related training, will help cut down on costs and undoubtedly improve service levels. However while it will also remove the necessity to have a large amount of personnel, especially at higher level, the issues with finding, recruiting and training resource will still involve all the traditional headaches IT Managers have always faced. With this in mind it can often be prudent to engage with a service provider and have a co-sourced or managed desk that remains in-house and under internal management control. Personnel selected by an expert provider will have all the up-to-date skills necessary for the roles required, and only the exact number needed will be provided, while none of the risks associated with wholesale outsourcing, or worse, off-shoring, are taken.

Improving IT infrastructure and enhancing security

Improving efficiencies in IT does not begin and end with the Service Desk of course. The platform on which your organisation sits, the IT infrastructure itself, is of equal importance in terms of both cost and performance – and crucially, is something that cannot be influenced by off-shoring. For example, investing in server virtualisation can make substantial cost savings in the medium to long term. Primarily this arises from energy saving but costs can also be cut in relation to space and building and maintenance of physical servers, not to mention the added green credentials. Increased business continuity is another advantage: virtualisation can minimise disruptions and inefficiencies, therefore reducing downtime – probably the quickest way to make this aspect of IT more efficient in the short, medium and long term.

Alongside the myriad of new technologies aimed squarely at improving efficiency and performance sits the issue of Information Security. With Data Protection laws getting tougher due to the new 2010 regulations, forcing private companies to declare any breaches to the Information Commissioner who has the right to make them public, and facing them with fines up to £500,000, security is becoming even more of an unavoidable cost than ever. Increased awareness is needed across the entire organisation as data security is not only the concern of the IT department, but applicable to all personnel at all levels. The first step in the right direction is having a thorough security review and gap analysis in order to assess compliance with ISO 27001 standards and study any weak points where a breach can occur. Then workshops are needed to train non-IT staff on how to deal with data protection. Management participation is particularly important in order to get the message across that data safety is vital to an organisation.

Taking a holistic view of IT

Whatever the area of IT under scrutiny, the use of external consultancies and service providers to provide assistance is often essential. That said, it is rare to find an occasion where moving IT away from the heart of the business results in improvements. The crucial element to consider then is balance. Many organisations, as predicted by Gartner at the beginning of this year, are investing in operational rather than capital expenditure as they begin to understand that adoption of the latest tools and assets is useless without a holistic view of IT. When taking this methodology and applying it to the Service Desk it soon becomes apparent that simply by applying a Best Practice approach to an internal desk and utilising the new technologies at your disposal, the quick-fix cost benefits of off-shoring soon become untenable.

Pete Canavan, Head of Support Services

This article is featured in the current issue of ServiceTalk

5 thoughts on the IT Service Desk that need re-thinking

Slowly recovering from the crisis and with a more careful eye to the unsteadiness of the market, many organisations across all sectors are considering ways to make their IT Service Desk more cost-efficient, but some ideas decision-makers might have could be partially or totally wrong.
So if you are thinking any of the following, you might want to think again:

“Our Service Desk is costing us too much. Outsourcing it to [insert favourite low-cost country abroad] can solve the problem.”

Although outsourcing has it advantages, doing it off-shore is a huge investment and has a lot of hidden costs, including losses due to inefficiencies and disruptions during the transition or caused by bad performance – bad service can damage the business. Moreover, reversing the move can be a costly, lengthy and treacherous procedure. Before they consider drastic moves, organisations should try to identify the reasons their IT expenditure is so high. Likely causes could be inefficient management, poor skills or obsolete tools and processes. Best practice implementation, using automated ITIL-compliant software and updating IT skills are a first step towards efficiency; however, a more cost-effective outsourcing solution could be handing management of the Service Desk to a service provider that can take care of service improvement on site.

“If leading companies around the world are off-shoring, it must be convenient.”

Only Global organisations seem to gain great benefits from off-shoring their IT department, often being the sole solution to reduce their otherwise enormous spending. Just because many important organisations are doing it, it doesn’t mean it is suitable for all. For example, there are important cultural differences which may not be an issue for those organisations with offices and clients spread worldwide that are already dealing with a mixture of cultures, but can definitely cause problems for a relatively European company with a certain type of business mind. Another issue is costs: many organisations find that after the conspicuous initial investment, cost saving might not exceed 10% and what is more, the new facility sometimes creates extra costs that were unforeseen, actually increasing expenditure.

“Our system has always worked; I don’t see why we should change it.”

Technology is changing regardless of one’s eagerness, and it is important to keep up with the changing demands of the market in order to remain competitive. A certain system might have worked five years ago, but new technologies and procedures can make older ones obsolete and comparatively inefficient. Take server virtualisation for example: business continuity can reach astonishing levels thanks to live migration, guaranteeing a better service with the extra benefit of energy saving through consolidation. Adoption of ITIL Best Practice processes also helps increase efficiency not only in the Service Desk, but in the business as a whole. Thanks to its implementation, organisations can save time and money and enhance the smoothness and quality of all IT-reliant operations, which helps the entire business.

“We need more 2nd and 3rd line engineers.”

When problems need more second and third-line resolution, it probably means first line is not efficient enough. Thanks to specific automated software to help with simple incidents and to the adoption of software as a service managed by an external provider, the simplest and most complex issues are being taken care of, meaning some of the work of a first-line engineer and the whole work of third-line engineers are no longer an issue for the organisation’s IT staff. However, the remaining incidents still need a more efficient resolution at first-line level: the more incidents are resolved here, the less need there is to increase the number of more expensive second-line staff. To improve first-line fix, engineers need to be trained to follow Best Practice processes that can make incident resolution fast and effective, as well as help the organisation deal with change and prevent risks connected to data security.

“I’d rather we managed our IT ourselves – control is key.”

An organisation might be proficient in its field, but may find it difficult to manage its IT Service Desk as effectively. When cost-efficiency is important, it is best to leave one’s ego at the door and have experts do the job. The IT arena is constantly changing and continuous training and updating is necessary in order to keep up with the market standards, and an organisation often cannot afford to invest in constant innovation of their IT. If outsourcing, on and off-shore, gives organisations the impression of losing control, then managed services is a better solution: the existing team and tools, or new and improved ones, can be managed by a service provider directly on the office premises, if needed. Thanks to this, organisations can focus on the more important parts of their business, leaving IT to the techies while still keeping an eye on it.

 

Adrian Polley, CEO

Find this article online at Fresh Business Thinking: http://www.freshbusinessthinking.com/business_advice.php?CID=&AID=5004&Title=5+Thoughts+On+The+IT+Service+Desk+That+Need+Re-Thinking