Usa & Canada It Service

Leading IT Service & Support

July/Aug. 2009

TM

The Service Desk
M

ea s
and M
t rics
e

urem

ent s

Strategy

Holistic
for
Service Support
ITSM

Project Management and IT
Service Management (ITSM) Best Practices
Technology

The Smartphone Information Revolution
Anytime—Anywhere Information Technology

Letter From the Editor
8

SupportWorld Readers,
HDIrecently hosted its Local Chapter Summit in Colorado Springs.
The summit, held annually, brings together local chapter officers
from across the U.S. and Canada to network, enhance their
leadership skills, and share and receive awards. HDI’s local chapter
officers are an integral part of our organization and are the lifeblood
of our local chapter community. It is an exciting event and a joy tosee many of our core members, volunteers, and supporters gather
together and develop strategies to build an even stronger foundation
for HDI and its membership. Thanks to all of you that attended and
best of luck to you in the coming year.

While we are still gleaning useful information from our 2008 Practices and Salary Survey, we are gathering
data from our membership for our 2009 survey.The Practices and Salary Survey benchmarks IT support
center data such as first-call resolution rates, cost-per-incident, and regional salaries. You can contribute
by visiting the HDI Web site via the Resources/Industry Reports tabs. Inside this issue, Robert Last, HDI’s
Content Manager, takes an in-depth look at First Call Resolution Rate metrics from data within our 2008
Practices andSalary Survey and discusses the question, “What percentage of incidents taken over the
phone are resolved on the first call?”
With more complex systems, integration to the business, ROI expectancies, and the role technology plays
in processes in today’s businesses; metrics remain quintessential to the management of our support centers.
To add to this (unfortunately), senior management still has atendency to “live or die” by the numbers.
What issues are service desk managers today faced with when managing all these numbers? In the feature
article, The Service Desk Balancing Act, Jim Murphy discusses three sets of service level metrics related to
the performance of an actual help desk and provides insight into the issues faced by service desk managers.
“Keeping an eye on how effectiveand efficient the service is performing is critical because the perception
of how well IT is performing is often influenced by how well the service desk performs.” —Jim Murphy
HDI continues to look for ways to serve you better and bring you the most informative, engaging content
in the industry. If you have a story or an article to share, please e-mail me at jneider@ThinkHDI.com.
Best Regards,Julie Neider

Please send your comments and questions regarding SupportWorld TM.
Letters to the editor should be sent to jneider@ThinkHDI.com or by mail to: 102 South Tejon Street, Suite 1200 • Colorado Springs, Colorado 80903
We reserve the right to edit all letters.

Editor-in-Chief

Contributors

Julie Neider

Jeffrey Brooks
Vance F. Brown
Mauricio Corona
Phil GerbyshakRobert Last

Art Director
Scott Hanson

Jim McKennan
Doug Mueller
James Murphy
Dr. Tracy O’Neill

TM

SupportWorldTM is published by HDI®

6

Research
The Meaning and Significance: First Call
Resolution Rate—A Closer Look at the
2008 Practices & Salary Survey Results

8

6

14

Metrics and Measurements
The Service Desk Balancing Act

14

Strategy
Holistic Rx for ServiceSupport

20

The Service Doctor

22

32

ITSM

22

Project Management and IT Service
Management (ITSM) Best Practices

26

Why Are Soft Skills Important?

28

Team Building
Building Strong Teams

32

Vertical Market
Some Good Ideas (and a few bad ones
to avoid) for Financial Services Self-service
Portals and Web Sites

36

Technology Trends
Self-Service: What...