Solve problems. Get things done. Make a noticeable difference by establishing an ongoing Lean Continual Service Improvement Program (CSI) for your Service Desk. Are you ready to turn your Service Desk into a lean and efficient support organization? If so, let’s discuss the CSI program.
The CSI program is about employing agile and lean mechanisms to deliver faster and eliminate waste. Waste is time and resources spent on non-value activities. For example, having a caller wait for an agent to get on the line is waste. Quickly solving the caller’s issue at first contact could be considered value.
How The Program Works
The program operates in cycles which are waves of improvement. You target key areas for focus in the first wave, go back and see the results. Then identify further improvements for the next wave and so on. The approach looks like this:
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Identify improvement initiatives for this cycle
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Measure current performance and analyze for deficiencies
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Identify root causes and develop mitigating strategies
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Implement strategies to correct deficiencies
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Monitor implemented strategies for benefit and value
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Identify pain points
Conduct interviews with key stakeholders
Develop detailed improvement plan for this wave
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Identify key performance indicators
Identify performance benchmarks and targets
Measure performance and identify deficiencies
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Identify root causes for deficiencies
Brainstorm potential solutions and strategies
Develop business cases to support solutions
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Update improvement plans with targeted strategies
Initiate activities to implement improvements
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Monitor improvement progress
Identify benefits and value of improvements implemented
Identify next wave improvements
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Leaning Out The Service Desk
The chart below summarizes common places where waste might exist at the Service Desk. It also provides some ideas on how you might address the waste identified.
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Issue To Fix
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Example Benchmark
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Possible Strategies
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Slow response to answering calls
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81% of calls answered in < 60 seconds
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Optimize ticket routing based on agent expertise and workload
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Long hold times
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No more than 6% of calls are held beyond 30 seconds
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Present chat to help resolve issues before agent has to get on the line
Offer callers multiple options for support before connecting to an agent
Provide hints to caller for things to try before connecting to an agent
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Speed of call resolution
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85% of calls resolved at first level within 5-10 minutes
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Reduce manual labor to fill out ticket forms with pre-filled fields
Auto-categorize tickets for faster agent response
Automate resolutions for common issues
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Caller satisfaction Rating
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90% of callers rate satisfaction at 4 or higher on a 5 point scale
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Identify root cause of customer dissatisfaction such as slow response, not fixing issues and/or too many unnecessary questions
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Service Desk Costs
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Average cost per contact < $15 (operating costs / number of contacts received)
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Reduce manual labor to fill out ticket forms with pre-filled fields
Automate resolutions for common issues
Address root causes of why calls are initiated to lower call volumes
Reduce call escalations to more expensive Level 2/3 support staff
Reduce/eliminate administrative overhead for agents when closing calls
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Ticket Backlog
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% of all tickets in backlog not yet resolved
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Try an “all-hands-on-deck” approach. Block off a few hours of the day, grab some food, and work as a group to get tickets off the backlog.
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Agent Productivity
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No more than 10% of agents take more handling time than average ticket handling time across all agents
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Publish common solutions for frequently called-in issues
Increase agent training
Provide agents with cheat sheets for common issues
Upgrade Knowledge Articles to better support agents
Leverage use of AI-powered chatbots that can provide instant answers to common questions
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12 areas where you may find opportunities to address waste at the Service Desk
Take a look at this checklist:
- Production of incident and request reports that no one reads or acts upon
- Production of incident data and history that is not used to improve services
- Manual processing of common requests that happen frequently over and over
- Agents researching solutions or how-to information to assist users
- Waiting for support teams to respond when calls are escalated
- Call agents that spend too much time trying to resolve tickets that should have been escalated sooner
- User delays for escalated tickets where they have to wait for technicians to call who end up asking similar questions or more detail about what took place
- Tickets escalated to the wrong support teams
- Delays caused by tickets that get bounced from one support team to another with little ownership for resolution or fulfillment
- Too many call options are presented to users when they call the Service Desk
- Too many ticket classification categories or classification schema that is needlessly complex
- Resolving the same incidents over and over without ever fixing what causes them in the first place
Find a few opportunities to make a difference. Post results where they can be seen. Why? Because fixing things and solving problems gets you noticed.