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Industry Megatrends:

A Benchmarking Perspective

1 © MetricNet, LLC, www.metricnet.com

20 Years of Help Desk Data

More than 1,200 Help Desk Benchmarks

Global Database

30 Key Performance Indicators

Nearly 80 Industry Best Practices


Then and Now: 20 Years of Benchmarking Metrics

Key Performance

Indicator

Industry Average Performance

1988 2007

Monthly Contacts per

End-User 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) $27,280 $36,115

Help Desk Cost per

End-User per Year $97 $584


The 20 Year Trend in Help Desk Budgets

Help Desk budgets have grown from 0.7% to 4.9% of corporate IT spending over the last 20 years.

0.0%

1.0%

2.0%

3.0%

4.0%

5.0%

6.0%

Help

Desk a

s %

of

IT B

ud

get

1988 1993 1998 2003 2007

0.7%

1.6%

3.0%

3.9%

4.9%

A 7 Fold Increase in Help Desk Budgets!

The Underlying Megatrends



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


A Primer on Help Desk TCO

Support Level

Cost per Incident

Resolved

Vendor

Desktop Support

Field Support

(inside company)

Level 2

(outside help desk)

Help Desk

$466

$138

$62

$41

$24


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

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

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

Support Stage Growth Stage Strategic Stage

The Help Desk Evolution


What Drives End-User Perceptions of IT?

84%

47%

31% 29%22%

8%

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

Help Desk Desktop

Support

Network

Outages

Quality of

Desktop

Tools

(Hardware

and Software)

Quality of

Enterprise

Applications

IT Training

% S

ayin

g V

ery

Im

po

rtan

t

84% of end-users cite the help desk as a primary factor

in shaping their opinions of corporate IT

The Resulting Megatrends



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


Increased Emphasis on First Contact Resolution

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

20% 40% 60% 80% 100%

First Contact Resolution

Cu

sto

mer

Sati

sfa

cti

on


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

LOWER

HIGHER

COST HIGHER

Total Cost per Contact

FIRST LEVEL

RESOLUTION RATE

First Level Resolution is Closely Related

Level 1 Cost per Contact

Total Level X Cost

CO

ST

PE

R

CO

NTA

CT


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

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 1

Scenario 2

Scenario 2 yields a savings of $33,450/month or $401,400/year!


4

3

2

1

Customer

Enthusiasm

Strategic Application of Key Performance Indicators

Measure

Diagnose

Prescribe

Implement

Model

Component Description

1. Measure

Measure help

desk

performance on

an ongoing basis

2. Diagnose

Benchmark

performance and

conduct a gap

analysis

3. Prescribe Define actions to

close the gap

4. Implement

Implement your

action plan and

improve

performance


KPI’s: Which Ones Really Matter?

Cost/contact

Cost

Productivity

Quality

Call Handling

Agent utilization

Customer satisfaction

First contact resolution rate

Agent Agent Satisfaction

Read MetricNet’s whitepaper on Help Desk Performance Metrics. Go to www.metricnet.com to get your copy!

Aggregate Balanced scorecard

Cost vs. Quality

http://www.metricnet.com/


The Balanced Scorecard

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

score X weighting

Worst Case Best Case

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%

Metric

Score

Balanced

ScorePerformance Metric

Metric

Weighting

Benchmark

Performance Range Your Actual

Performance


Your Help Desk Performance

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

COMPARE

The Benchmarking Methodology

Read MetricNet’s whitepaper on Help Desk Benchmarking. Go to www.metricnet.com to receive your copy!



Call Abandonment Rate vs. Customer Satisfaction

0.0%

20.0%

40.0%

60.0%

80.0%

100.0%

0.0% 5.0% 10.0% 15.0% 20.0% 25.0%

Call Abandonment Rate

Cu

sto

mer

Sati

sfa

cti

on


Call Abandonment Rate vs. Cost per Contact

$0.00

$10.00

$20.00

$30.00

$40.00

$50.00

0.0% 5.0% 10.0% 15.0% 20.0% 25.0% 30.0%

Call Abandonment Rate

Co

st

per

Co

nta

ct


Investments in Agent Development

0.0%

20.0%

40.0%

60.0%

80.0%

0 20 40 60 80 100

Veteran Agent Training Hours

An

nu

al

Ag

en

t T

urn

over

$0.00

$8.00

$16.00

$24.00

$32.00

$40.00

0 75 150 225 300 375

New Agent Training Hours

Co

st

pe

r C

on

tac

t

0.0%

20.0%

40.0%

60.0%

80.0%

100.0%

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70

Veteran Agent Training Hours

Fir

st

Call

Reso

luti

on

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350

New Agent Training Hours

Cu

sto

me

r S

ati

sfa

cti

on


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!


Renewed Emphasis on Internal Marketing

LOWER COST HIGHER ACTUAL VALUE

PE

RC

EIV

ED

VA

LU

E

HIGHER

LOWER

Perceived Value > Actual Value

Perceived Value < Actual Value


Increased Starting Salaries for Agents

$0.00

$10.00

$20.00

$30.00

$40.00

$50.00

$0 $10,000 $20,000 $30,000 $40,000 $50,000 $60,000 $70,000

Agent Starting Salaries

Co

st

per

Co

nta

ct


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

About MetricNet:

Your Benchmarking Partner



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.

Your Presenter: Jeff Rumburg

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.


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


You Can Reach MetricNet…

By Phone…

703-992-7559

On Our Website…

www.metricnet.com

Or E-mail us…

[email protected]


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We look forward

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