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First Level Resolution The Key to Minimizing End-User Support Costs

About MetricNet

© MetricNet, LLC, www.metricnet.com


Benchmarking is MetricNet’s Core Business

Call Center

Telecom

Information

Technology

Satisfaction

Customer Service

Telemarketing/Telesales

Collections

Service Desk

Desktop Support

Field Services

Price Benchmarking

Customer Satisfaction

Employee Satisfaction


Meet a Sampling of Our Benchmarking Clients

MetricNet Conducts benchmarking for Service Desks worldwide,

and across virtually every industry sector.

http://www.barclays.co.uk/


22 Years of Service Desk Benchmarking Data

More than 1,400 Service Desk Benchmarks

Global Database

30 Key Performance Indicators

Nearly 80 Industry Best Practices

First Level Resolution



MetricNet’s Service Desk KPI’s

Cost per Contact

Price per Contact

First Level Resolution

Rate

Cost Productivity

Service Level

Quality

Call Handling Agent

Average Speed of Answer

(ASA)

Call Abandonment Rate

% Answered in 30 Seconds

Agent Utilization

Contacts per Agent per

Month

Agents as a % of Total

Headcount

Customer Satisfaction

First Contact Resolution Rate

Call Quality

Agent Satisfaction

New Agent Training Hours

Annual Agent Training

Hours

Annual Agent Turnover

Agent Tenure

Daily Absenteeism

Agent Occupancy

Schedule Adherence

Call Handle Time

Email Handle Time

IVR Completion Rate

% User Self-Service


Cost of Resolution: North American Averages

Support Level Cost per Ticket

Vendor

Level 2: Desktop Support

Field Support

Level 3 IT

(apps, networking, NOC, etc.)

Level 1: Service Desk

$471

$196

$85

$62

$22


As the Level 1 resolution rate increases, the cost per contact for Level 1 increases

But the total cost per contact, including Level n costs, declines

The cost of resolution at level n is typically 2X to 10X greater than at Level 1

LOWER

HIGHER

COST HIGHER

Total Cost per Contact

FIRST LEVEL

RESOLUTION RATE

Total Cost of Ownership

Level 1 Cost per Contact

Total Level n Cost

CO

ST

PE

R

CO

NTA

CT


First Level Resolution Defined

Gross First Level Resolution =

Net First Level Resolution =

First Level Resolution ≠ First Contact Resolution

All Tickets Resolved at Level 1

All Tickets Logged at Level 1

All Tickets Resolved at Level 1

All Tickets Resolvable at Level 1


What is a Carve Out?

The term “Carve Out” is commonly used in the industry to refer to a contact type that

is carved out of the denominator when calculating the Net First Level Resolution

In general, carve outs are tickets that cannot physically be resolved at Level 1

Typical Carve Out’s include hardware break/fix, and move’s/add’s/change’s

Some Carve Out’s, however, have the potential to be resolved at Level 1 but are not

resolved at Level 1 for various reasons

Lack of access rights to certain systems may prevent resolution at Level 1, and result in

Carve Out’s

Outsourcing contracts may specify that certain ticket types are to remain off-limits to the

outsourcer for security reasons, and result in Carve Out’s

The denominator of the Net First Level Resolution ratio is “All Tickets Resolvable at

Level 1”

The denominator is also equal to (All Tickets Logged at Level 1 – Carve Outs)

Net First Level Resolution is always greater than Gross First Level Resolution


Our Baseline Service Desk

7,000 voice calls

1,500 emails

750 web chats

500 voice mails

250 walk/fax-ins

Monthly Contacts

10,000

Monthly Tickets

8,000

Monthly Incidents

5,000

Monthly Service

Requests

3,000


Tickets, Incidents, and Service Requests

Incident Volume + Service Request Volume = Ticket Volume

Tickets

Incidents Service Requests

Unplanned work

Often high urgency

Hardware break/fix

Software break/fix

Software “how to”

Device failure

Connectivity failure

Password reset

Planned work

Often requires a physical touch to one or more devices

Move/Add/Change

Hardware or software upgrade

Issue new ID or security clearance

Device set-up or refresh


Our Baseline Service Desk (continued)

Estimated Operating Cost

8,000 Tickets X $22 per Ticket = $176,000 per month, or $2.11 million per year

Ticket Description Ticket Type

Monthly

Volume

Password Reset Incident 2,250

Software "How To" Incident 1,500

VPN Connectivity Incident 600

Application Failure Incident 150

Hardware Failure Incident 500

5,000

Move/Add/Change Service Request 1,600

Printer Replacement Service Request 950

Laptop Replacement Service Request 450

3,000

8,000

Incident Total

Service Request Total

Ticket Total


Ticket Resolution Rates

Level 1Level 2

Desktop Level 3 IT Field Support Vendor Total

Password Reset Incident 2,250 1,750 100 300 100 2,250

Software "How To" Incident 1,500 900 300 200 75 25 1,500

VPN Connectivity Incident 600 300 200 50 50 600

Application Failure Incident 150 75 25 25 10 15 150

Hardware Failure Incident 500 0 300 75 75 50 500

Move/Add/Change Service Request 1,600 0 1,200 400 1,600

Laptop Replacement Service Request 950 0 700 250 950

Blackberry Upgrade Service Request 450 0 175 275 450

8,000 3,025 3,000 650 1,235 90 8,000

100.0% 37.8% 37.5% 8.1% 15.4% 1.1% 100.0%Percent of All Tickets

Resolved AtMonthly

VolumeTicket TypeTicket Description

Total


Calculating the Gross First Level Resolution

Gross First Level Resolution = All Tickets Resolved at Level 1

All Tickets Logged at Level 1

Gross First Level Resolution = 3,025

8,000 = 37.8%


Calculating the Net First Level Resolution

Password Reset Incident 2,250 2,250 1,750 500

Software "How To" Incident 1,500 1,500 900 600

VPN Connectivity Incident 600 500 300 200

Application Failure Incident 150 125 75 50

Hardware Failure Incident 500 0 0 0

Move/Add/Change Service Request 1,600 0 0 0

Laptop Replacement Service Request 950 0 0 0

Blackberry Upgrade Service Request 450 0 0 0

8,000 4,375 3,025 1,350

100.0% 54.7% 37.8% 16.9%

Resolvable at

Level 1

Actually

Resolved at

Level 1

Escalation

DefectsTicket Description Ticket Type

Monthly

Volume

Total

Percent of All Tickets

New Metric: % Escalated Level 1 Resolvable

For this Service Desk the % Escalated that Could Have Been Resolved at Level 1 was 16.9%


Net First Level Resolution

Net First Level Resolution = All Tickets Resolved at Level 1

All Tickets Resolvable at Level 1

Net First Level Resolution =

Total Tickets – Carve Outs = Tickets Resolvable at Level 1

8,000 – Carve Outs = 4,375

Carve Outs = 8,000 – 4,375 = 3,625 (Cannot Physically be Resolved at Level 1)

3,025

4,375 = 69.1%


69% Net First Level Resolution: Good or Bad?

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

45

50

55

0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% 40% 45% 50% 55% 60% 65% 70% 75% 80% 85% 90% 95% 100%

Net First Level Resolution Rate

Num

ber

of D

ata

Poin

ts

Average ------ 73.9%

Max 98.9%

Min 24.0%

Median 75.0%

> 95% Net FLR 2.0%

Industry Average Net FLR Statistics


How Do the Escalation Defects Impact TCO?

Escalation Defects are costing $140,455 per month, or $1.7 million per year!

Level 2

Desktop Level 3 IT Field Support Vendor Total

Password Reset Incident 500 100 300 100 500

Software "How To" Incident 600 300 200 75 25 600

VPN Connectivity Incident 200 100 50 50 200

Application Failure Incident 50 20 15 10 5 50

Hardware Failure Incident 0 0

Move/Add/Change Service Request 0 0

Laptop Replacement Service Request 0 0

Blackberry Upgrade Service Request 0 0

1,350 520 565 235 30 1,350

$62 $85 $196 $471 N/A

$32,240 $48,025 $46,060 $14,130 $140,455

Escalation Defects Resolved At

Total

Level n Cost per Ticket

Cost of Defects

Ticket Description Ticket Type Defects


So, How do We Maximize Net First Level Resolution?

1. Agent Training Hours

2. Remote Diagnostic Capability

3. Knowledge Management

4. FLR Performance Target


Initial Agent Training Hours vs. Net First Level Resolution

0.0%

10.0%

20.0%

30.0%

40.0%

50.0%

60.0%

70.0%

80.0%

90.0%

100.0%

0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400 450

New Agent Training Hours

Net

Fir

st

Level

Reso

luti

on


Annual Agent Training Hours vs. Net First Level Resolution

0.0%

10.0%

20.0%

30.0%

40.0%

50.0%

60.0%

70.0%

80.0%

90.0%

100.0%

0 20 40 60 80 100 120

Annual Agent Training Hours

Net

Fir

st

Level

Reso

luti

on


The Effect of Remote Diagnostic Software

0.0%

10.0%

20.0%

30.0%

40.0%

50.0%

60.0%

70.0%

80.0%

90.0%

100.0%

Net

Fir

st

Level

Reso

luti

on

Remote Diagnostic Software No Remote Diagnostic Software

Average = 77.8% FLR

Average = 61.4% FLR


The Effect of a Mature Knowledge Base

0.0%

10.0%

20.0%

30.0%

40.0%

50.0%

60.0%

70.0%

80.0%

90.0%

100.0%

0 1 2 3 4 5 6

KBase Maturity

Net

Fir

st

Level

Reso

luti

on


Some Final Thoughts

Net First Level Resolution is a critically important metric to track and trend

in the Service Desk

It is a proxy for Total Cost of Ownership

Maximizing the Net First Level Resolution Rate on your Service Desk is the

key to minimizing Total Cost of Ownership

The path to maximizing First Level Resolution is fairly straightforward

Increased agent training hours

Effective remote diagnostic tools

A functional knowledge base

An FLR target that increases over time

World-Class performance for Net First Level Resolution is 95% or above


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By Phone…

703-992-7559

Or E-mail us…

[email protected]

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mailto:[email protected]

http://www.metricnet.com/


Thank You!

We look forward

to serving you!

free service desk training series | service desk first level resolution | metricnet certified

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