Mark Jacot

At a recent IT Service Conference, I took part in a great workshop about measures. For me the most important measure is listening to my staff and customers. Ultimately, if you can create a climate of openness, then people will tell you honestly what is working well and what isn’t.

Why would anyone want to give feedback? – I think it is because they feel it makes a difference. So the key to good feedback is to listen, understand and then do something about it. Then you will start to find out what is really going on

So once you are talking and listening to your staff and customers, what 3 measures would you use to keep a close handle on things? I focus on these

Core service levels – in my case major incidents over a 12 month rolling period

Customer satisfaction – after every incident or service request ticket we ask only one question – Were you totally satisfied with the service you received. (I learnt that trick from Toyota)

Lastly, a measure of how your most important channel is performing – for me it is my help desk so I measure call handling. I’m not sure what exactly the best measure is, and in time I will probably look at how to focus that on online ticket handling too. One great tip I had once is make your preferred channel the best and fastest. So unless you want everything to come via the phone, then make sure the call answering is not to fast!

One other tip I learnt from Sam Vickerman who is great at this sort of thing. Every time you add a new measure, get rid of one or two old ones to force yourself to focus on whats important. Try to avoid dashboard obesity!

What would be your top 3 measures – are they similar or different and have I missed anything critical?