OVERVIEW
● In India’s fast-paced service ecosystem, tracking the right help desk metrics is crucial to deliver timely and reliable customer support.
● Metrics like Average Handle Time and First Response Time help service teams improve efficiency and reduce customer wait times.
● Ticket Resolution Rate and First Contact Resolution highlight how effectively issues are solved without repeat follow-ups.
● Customer Satisfaction Scores (CSAT/NPS) offer direct insights into customer expectations across diverse markets.
● Monitoring Abandonment Rate and Contact Channels ensures better call handling during peak volumes.
● Metrics such as Agent Turnover and Headcount FTE help businesses optimize staffing and control operational costs.
Introduction
Service desks, help desks, or support desks all refer to departments that provide help to internal and external customers, but how do they differ, and what do they do?
The main difference is that Service Desk is often used for Contact Center as a Service, and help desks are often used for internal IT issues. The main point of a help or service desk is to provide customer support or to support internal IT. Often, companies will have a help desk for internal IT issues and a separate service desk for customer support issues.
This blog is an ideal tool for assessing the efficiency and quality of your customer service or help desk and identifying any areas of improvement.
Metrics to Keep an Eye on
Here are the Metrics to Keep an Eye on:
1. Average Handle Time
This metric measures the average amount of time it takes to resolve a ticket from start to finish. By tracking this number, you can get an idea of how long each issue is taking and identify areas for improvement.
2. Average FRT (First Response Time)
This metric measures the average amount of time it takes for your team to respond to a ticket after it’s been submitted. Quick response time is important for providing excellent customer service, so aim to keep this number as low as possible.
3. Ticket Resolution Rate
This metric measures the percentage of tickets that are successfully resolved within a given time frame. A high resolution rate is indicative of a well-run help desk, so aim for as close to 100% as possible.
4. Customer Satisfaction Score
Customer satisfaction is a key goal for any business.
You can measure Customer Satisfaction, usually with surveys, and while they’re sometimes referred to as customer satisfaction or NPS surveys, they can be taken after any positive experience with your business: we recommend running them following ticket success conversations to see how things went internally, or you can ask customers to take the survey after tickets have been resolved if some issues remain.
All department chiefs should periodically monitor the customer feedback service and make sure to address any actionable items quickly so that your customers are happier. Monitoring data can not only motivate your front-line agents, but it will also make customers happier, too!
5. Resolution Rate
One of the most important help desk metrics is the company’s resolution rate. This metric represents the percentage of tickets that are successfully resolved by the team.
A high resolution rate means that your team is efficient and effective at solving customer problems.
There are a few different ways to calculate the resolution rate:
a. One method is to take the number of closed tickets divided by the number of total tickets received.
b. Another common method is to take the number of closed tickets divided by the number of open tickets plus the number of closed tickets.
Regardless of the method you choose, it is important to track the resolution rate over time so you can recognize trends and areas for improvement. If you see a dip in your resolution rate, you can investigate the cause and take steps to improve it.
6. Conversion Rate
In business, the ‘conversion rate’ is often discussed, especially in marketing.
A conversion rate is the percentage of people who take the desired action. For example, if 100 people visit your website and four of them buy something, your conversion rate would be 4%.
If you’re running a service desk or internal help desk, you probably want to know what your conversion rates are for different types of interactions.
Let’s understand the conversion rates:
a. Overall Conversion Rate: This is the number of contacts that resulted in a successful resolution divided by the total number of contacts received. It’s a good metric to track overall performance.
b. First Contact Resolution Rate: This is the number of contacts that are resolved on the first contact, divided by the total number of contacts received. It’s a good metric to track because it shows how efficiently your team is resolving issues.
c. Repeat Contact Rate: This is the number of contacts that are received from customers who have already contacted you about the same issue, divided by the total number of contacts received.
7. Abandon Rate
Is your service desk dealing with a high abandonment rate? This metric can help you assess how efficient and effective your service desk is. The abandonment rate is the percentage of customers who hang up before their call is answered.
The high abandonment rate indicates that your service desk is not able to handle the volume of calls it receives. This can be due to many factors, such as understaffing or poor call routing. If you have a high abandonment rate, it’s important to take steps to mitigate it.
This includes ensuring that calls are answered promptly and efficiently and that customers are routed to the appropriate agent.
8. Method of Contact Type
How many contacts does your help/service desk receive each day? How are these contacts distributed among the various channels you offer (e.g., phone, email, web, etc.)? This metric can help you understand which channels are used most often and whether you need to adjust your staffing or support offerings accordingly.
Another important metric is the average speed of answers for each channel.
This measures how long it takes for your team to respond to a customer inquiry and can be a good indicator of overall customer satisfaction. If you find that certain channels have a consistently high speed of answer, you may want to focus more attention on those channels to keep customers happy.
Additionally, you’ll want to track the average handle time for each contact. This metric measures how long it takes from when a customer first contacts your help desk until the problem is resolved. A high average handle time can be indicative of a number of issues, such as understaffing or complex problems that require more time to resolve. By keeping an eye on this metric, you can make sure that your team is able to resolve issues on time.
9. Help Desk Turnover Ratio
The Help Desk turnover ratio is a metric that can be used to assess the efficiency and quality of the service provided by a help desk. This metric can be used to help identify areas where the help desk can improve its operations and provide better Contact Center as a Service to its customers.
10. Headcount Full-Time Equivalent
Headcount FTE is a metric that measures the number of full-time equivalent employees working in a particular area. This metric is often used to compare staffing levels between units and the company as a whole to show growth or stagnation. For example, you may use headcount FTE to compare staffing levels in your IT department with those of your competitors to assess whether you are ahead or behind them in this regard.
The headcount full-time equivalent is a good metric to use when managing a service/ help desk. It helps you track your employees’ progress over time, which gives you an idea of the potential areas for savings in terms of manpower and equipment. Second, it allows you to compare agents to one another by showing how many tickets each agent can handle per hour, then giving you what percentage that represents compared with other agents who are working at that same level of efficiency.
Bottom Line
This blog post was all about the top-most important metrics for service desks and help desks, as well as how to measure them. We hope you enjoyed reading it and will be able to apply some of the insights to your service desk or help desk.
If you have any questions about what was said in this blog, we’re always here to help.