Metric of the Month: Same Day/Next Day Resolution

Each month, I highlight one Key Performance Indicator (KPI) for service and support. I define the KPI, provide recent benchmarking data for the metric, and discuss key correlations and cause-and-effect relationships for the metric. The purpose of the column is to familiarize you with the KPIs that really matter to your organization and to provide you with actionable insight on how to leverage these KPIs to improve your performance! This month, I look at same day/next day resolution.

Same day/next day resolution is a desktop support and field services metric. It’s defined as the percentage of tickets opened that are resolved and closed before the end of the following business day. So, for example, if a ticket enters the field services queue at 8:00 a.m. on a Monday and is closed by 5:00 p.m. on Tuesday, it qualifies for same day/next day resolution. Likewise, if a ticket is opened at 4:30 p.m. on a Friday it would need to be resolved by 5:00 p.m. the following Monday to qualify for same day/next day resolution.

Same day/next day resolution is considered a service level metric. The most common service level associated with same day/next day is 80%, meaning that the goal is to resolve 80% of all desktop support and field service tickets same day/next day. However, this is not a hard and fast standard. Some support groups have established a goal as low as 60% or as high as 90% for same day/next day resolution. Almost all ITSM systems can be easily configured to track same day/next day resolution.

As a service level metric, same day/next day resolution is increasingly favored over mean time to resolve (MTTR) because it is more intuitive to most people. If I tell you that the MTTR for all field service tickets is 32 hours, that probably doesn’t mean much to you. But if I tell you that 84% of all field service tickets are resolved same day/next day, you have a pretty good idea of how quickly tickets are being resolved.

Additionally, technicians who work in desktop support and field services are more responsive to same day/next day than to MTTR. They tend to keep an eye on tickets that are nearing expiration (i.e., tickets that are about to age past the same day/next day target) and focus on tickets that are about to breach the service level in an effort to maximize their same day/next day performance.

Why It’s Important

Everyone wants quick resolution times. I have demonstrated in a past Metric of the Month that customer satisfaction increases as MTTR decreases. The implication is that you can drive customer satisfaction higher by resolving desktop and field service tickets more quickly. Moreover, same day/next day and MTTR are highly correlated. As same day/next day resolution increases, MTTR decreases. As such, an increase in same day/next day resolution has the same effect as a decrease in MTTR: customer satisfaction goes up!

Everyone wants quick resolution times. You can drive customer satisfaction higher by resolving tickets more quickly.

Additionally, we have observed through our benchmarks that ticket backlog is lower for organizations that track same day/next day resolution. So, it appears that same day/next day resolution drives more positive outcomes for support organizations. It results in higher customer satisfaction, quicker resolution times, and lower ticket backlogs. There’s a lot to like about this metric!

Benchmark Data for Same Day/Next Day Resolution

Approximately 20% of IT support organizations track same day/next day resolution, but it is rapidly gaining acceptance as a mainstream metric. The benchmarking data below shows industry statistics for same day/next day resolution, along with the corresponding metrics for MTTR and Ticket Backlog greater than 30 days old.

Managing Same Day/Next Day Resolution

The best way to raise awareness, maximize performance, and drive accountability for same day/next day resolution is to set an individual performance target that desktop support and field service technicians are expected to meet. I would suggest a target of 80%.

If the support organization has a significant ticket backlog, the backlog will need to be cleaned up before you can achieve this performance goal because every ticket you close that is more than two days old is a ticket that was not resolved same day/next day. Please see last month’s Metric of the Month for tips on how to manage and reduce ticket backlog.

Please join me for next month’s Metric of the Month: Metrics Maturity Drives Performance, where I will explore the relationship between the maturity of your metrics discipline and the overall performance of IT service and support.

Jeff will teach a two-day workshop, Succeeding with Metrics, at SupportWorld Live!
Join us!

Jeff Rumburg is the winner of the 2014 Ron Muns Lifetime Achievement Award, and was named to HDI’s Top 25 Thought Leaders. As co-founder and CEO of MetricNet, Jeff has been retained as an IT service and support expert by some of the world’s largest corporations, including American Express, Hewlett Packard, Coca-Cola, and Sony. He was formerly CEO of the Verity Group and Vice President of Gartner. Jeff received his MBA from Harvard University and his MS in Operations Research from Stanford University. Contact Jeff at [email protected] . Follow MetricNet on Twitter @MetricNet.