Helpdesk Metrics That Matter

The report had forty-one metrics on it. The list included tickets per agent per day, average handle time, utilisation, first-touch rate, and a satisfaction index to two decimal places. It also included a thing called throughput velocity that nobody could define. But it had gone up, which was good. The report took a technician a day a month to produce. It was read by nobody, including the manager who had asked for it, because forty-one numbers is not information. It is weather. Meanwhile the desk had three hundred open tickets, half of them older than a month. The report did not say so, because backlog age was not one of the forty-one.

This series is about the six numbers that would have said so. It covers the handful of metrics worth tracking and the question each one answers. It covers vanity metrics to ignore, including the ones the tool shows you by default. It covers defining each metric exactly, so that two people pulling the same number get the same number. Then comes metric gaming and its cures, which mostly means removing the incentive rather than catching the person. It covers reading metrics together, in pairs that keep each other honest. And it covers starting measurement on a small desk with a spreadsheet and a quarter. A metric is a question the desk has agreed to keep asking. Six good questions beat forty-one bad ones.

Articles in This Series

• The Handful of Metrics Worth Tracking, and Why It Is Six
  Volume, first response, time to resolution, backlog and its age, reopen rate, satisfaction. Covers why six, the question each answers and what it cannot, and the metric card set.
• Vanity Metrics to Ignore, and the Test That Finds Them
  Tickets closed per agent as a score, averages of everything, utilisation, and the number that goes up and means nothing. Also covers the metric that exists because the tool shows it, and the vanity-metric test.
• Defining Each Metric Exactly, So Two People Get the Same Number
  Numerator, denominator, window, exclusions, business hours, which tickets count; the argument when two reports disagree; and the metric definition sheet.
• Metric Gaming and Its Cures: Fix the Incentive, Not the Technician
  How each metric gets gamed, and why people game (the metric became a target). Covers the cure for each (pair it, sample it, remove the incentive), and the gaming and cure table.
• Reading Metrics Together, Not One at a Time
  The pairs that keep each other honest, the monthly read in fifteen minutes, and the one-page scorecard.
• Starting Metrics on a Small Desk, One Quarter at a Time
  What to measure in month one, the spreadsheet fallback, when to add the next metric, what to stop measuring, and the first-quarter plan.

Explore More Topics

This series is part of the QuerySolv helpdesk topic library. It covers the foundations, processes, communication, knowledge, tooling, metrics, classic ticket domains, people and strategy behind a support desk that works. The library pairs well with the software we build: QuerySolv. It is a self-hosted help desk that runs as one Windows service on your own network. It is licensed once per installation, not per agent per month.