Serio IT Service Desk & Helpdesk Blog

One of the things I help customers with a lot is reporting. In essence, helping people choose what ITSM statistics to examine, and then helping them interpret the data and use it to make management decisions with – something that sounds rather easier than it is for those getting started with ITSM.

I’ve prepared a somewhat light-hearted survey for you to take below to assess the quality of your own reporting. Simply read the statement and then make a note of the score for the best response available for you.

‘I run reports and then frame a text summary of the data available which explains my own conclusions and future actions’

I just print them and send them direct to customers (score 1)
I sometime do this (score 2)
There are reports? (score 0)
Yes, I do this every week or month (score 5)

‘My reports focus mainly on Incidents logged and resolved, broken down in different ways’

Yes that is true (score 2)
I use this data and quite a few other streams as well (score 5)
I don’t report on Incidents logged at all (Score 0)

‘I report on the number of first-time fixes made by my Helpdesk/Service Desk’

Yes (score 6)
What is a first-time fix? (Score 0)

‘I report on responsiveness – how soon we contact customers after reporting a fault’

Yes (Score 5)
I just report on resolution performance with respect to my SLA (Score 2)
I ignore SLA data, my customers don’t care about that (Score 0)

‘My reporting uses Causes for Incidents that we resolve.’

No, I’ve never got round to defining any Cause data (score 0)
Yes I run reports using Cause data (score 4)
Yes, I run reports using Cause data & I use this data to reduce Incidents (score 5)
Causes are for wimps – I have a Proactive Problem Management framework in place (score 6)

‘I run reports that produce statistics for both Team and Agent performance. I use this info to see how Incidents move through to resolution.’

No my customers are not interested in this (score 0)
Sometimes, when I think I have a problem (score 2)
Yes always (score 5)

‘My statistics include telephone stats such as call abandonment and number of rings before pickup’

Yes (score 5)
If we pick up the phone too quickly customers phone too often (score -1)
No I never thought about this & don’t report on it (score 0)

‘My reports include a section on Major Incidents where I report what Major Incidents occurred, and what we have learned from them’

We are too busy fixing the Major Incident to record it and report it (score 0)
If I report on Major Incidents we will look bad (score 0)
Yes always (score 5)

I’ll write on what you can conclude from your scores in my next post. In the meantime, add up your score.

Edit by admin: You can rate your scores here. We also have a white paper entitled ‘Service Desk/Helpdesk Metrics – Getting Started’ you can read here.

• More Simple Helpdesk/Service Desk Metrics and Reports
• Does Your Helpdesk/Service Desk Phone Just Ring Out?
• Measuring the Performance of Helpdesk/Service Desk Teams and Agents