We’ve offered you a behind-the-scenes look at a remote engineer’s workstation in our IT helpdesk support center. Our helpdesk technicians want to resolve problems quickly, so people can get back to work with minimal disruption. Now, let’s follow along the process of an IT support ticket with the helpdesk, identifying the metrics of a successful helpdesk request.
Managed services end users contact the IT helpdesk in many ways, including email and directly on the client portal. Our helpdesk teams have set procedures for resolving each type of incoming ticket. Because phone calls are the most common means of contact, we’ll focus on call-in requests…
4 rings to reach helpdesk technicians
We’re proud to report we pick up most IT helpdesk calls within four rings. Our on-hold time averages 20 seconds! NetGain’s highly-qualified helpdesk engineers are available to answer calls as quickly as possible, resolve the issue, and allow you to go about your day.
We don’t like people waiting for us, and we understand that everyone’s time is valuable.
12 minutes to Triage the issue
We assume every ticket is a Priority 1 until we diagnose, or Triage, it! When our clients reach out to us for help, we diagnose how to resolve the issue within 12 minutes.
We Triage the technology issue by assessing the Impact and Urgency to set the priority of the ticket. Once the ticket is Triaged, it is sent to the appropriate engineer who can best help your request.
15 minutes of IT support troubleshooting
We’ve resolved more than 2-million IT support tickets, for hundreds of clients, during our 40-plus years as a world-class managed IT services provider. We’ve refined our support processes to be efficient and thorough.
Incoming calls become tickets for the Rapid Response Team. These tickets are electronic paper trails that log the client’s problem and what steps are taken to resolve the issue. Once a ticket is active, our team works directly with the client to determine their issue and fix the problem.
Our Rapid Response Teams are organized into PODs. Your dedicated POD will work diligently to resolve your issue on the first point of contact. The POD team will take 30 minutes to attempt resolving your issue. Anything beyond 30 minutes is escalated directly to a Tier 2 engineer, on your regional POD, for escalation to work remotely or come onsite to fix the issue.
4% escalation rate
Okay, 15 minutes is a good goal—but how often do callers’ issues require additional attention?
The average “managed IT” helpdesk resolves somewhere between 67% and 70% of support calls, making the industry standard for escalation somewhere around 30%. The NetGain Technologies helpdesk technicians strive for a much better customer experience. We guarantee 85% of tickets to be resolved within that first 15 minutes, and our internal goal for escalation percentage is 4%. That means for every 100 calls that come to our team, we want our remote engineers to resolve 96. And we’re succeeding! Our average run rate is between 3% and 4%.
This level of IT service desk support is good for the end user as we’re able to fix issues much quicker remotely, rather than having to send technicians onsite.
(Wonder why we don’t target 100% of calls for remote support? Some issues—like hard drives that fail permanently—are simply impossible to solve without onsite visits. That’s why we staff seven regional offices with the best field engineers in the industry.)
100% recording and monthly call quality audits
We record every call that comes in to NetGain’s IT helpdesk. Every month we review a random sample of each engineer’s calls for quality assurance.
Across the team, and individually by technician, we identify areas for training so our calls are faster and smoother for clients. Altogether, we collect and analyze the data for every helpdesk contact and ticket. We reference our service desk metrics constantly to improve the process.
Satisfaction survey
After every IT helpdesk request, we share a short survey with the client to gauge satisfaction with the process and the issue resolution. This process is the best way for an end user to communicate back to NetGain. Whether clients send kudos to a technician, or suggest improvements, the IT support desk loves feedback!
Our company goal is 95% satisfaction. We raised our Operations team’s goal to 97% client approval rate, and in practice we have hit 98% to 99% scores month after month.
Performance penalty for missing SLAs
Within our new Technology OneSource Services Packages, we implemented a performance penalty.
Technology OneSource is our world-class managed IT services program. Our contracts identify several service level agreements (SLAs) that guarantee high minimum standards for the services we provide. For example, SLAs may institute requirements on how quickly we must respond to service requests and begin working on the ticket.
The performance penalty promise is simple. If we don’t do what we say we’re going to do, we’ll provide a credit back to you on your next agreement invoice. Effectively, if we miss our SLAs, you receive a price break. You’ve never seen this elsewhere—we’re the only ones who offer it.
WOW Factor
We’ve all heard the gushing stories about top retailers with great customer service, like Apple and Costco. NetGain Technologies endeavors to be known for this same high level of customer approval.
NetGain’s Rapid Response Teams are trained to ensure that when you call our helpdesk, you think, “WOW—they did a great job for me” at the end of the call.
