Why you need to build metrics around your MSP’s Service Desk now!

As your IT Solution Provider or Managed Service Provider (MSP) business grows, inevitably so  does the Service Desk team that is at the “coal face” dealing with client support requests.

As the business owner, when things get busy for your Service Delivery team it’s all too easy to  assume that you need extra resource to cope with the increase in demand. But anyone who has ever hired a new employee – especially a Technical member of staff – knows that this is easier said than done. Finding the right person can be a resource intensive job, taking time and energy, not to mention incurring a cost to your business.

Even once you’ve hired someone, what is to stop this pattern repeating in a years time, or sooner? Worse – what if demand from clients falls back down, leaving you with an expensive additional member of staff who is now under-utilised.

Gut Feel vs Fact Based Decisions

The decision on whether or not to bring in additional resource for your Service Desk should not be one made on gut feeling. When you’re busy, juggling lots of balls and with client demands ringing in your ears, the instinct is to bring in extra resource.

But if you measure the demand on your Service Desk on a continuous basis, then you’re in a much better position to analyse trends, predict future performance and ultimately, make fact-based decisions on what you need to do to meet client demand.

Analysing Trends

For instance, measuring the number of open tickets vs. closed tickets on an on-going basis will give you evidence as to whether the demand your clients are making on your Service Desk is actually growing – and if it is growing, whether there is an obvious and clear pattern to this growth, or whether it is just an unusual spike.

If, based on historical demand on your Service Desk, it is a spike – then logic dictates that you hold off on hiring any new resource, or only consider some additional temporary resource.

But if the trend is one of ever increasing client demand, then it may well be time to hire some new resource.

Conclusion

Adding resource to your Service Desk team is not a measure to be taken lightly. Hiring staff is time consuming, can distract key members of your team away from other important work, and can be very costly.

By building simple metrics around the demands placed on your MSP’s Service Desk today, you will give yourself the opportunity to analyse trends and make fact-based decisions tomorrow – decisions that could save you a lot of time and money.

photo credit: michaeljzealot via photopin cc

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