strategy for reducing ticket backlog

1/8/2014

1

Mark Copeland

Strategy for Reducing Ticket Backlog

Service Managers’ Responsibilities

� Daily

– Each morning, Service Managers open the SLA Monitor in the ticket system, e-mail anyone with a ticket that is approaching breach of SLA and ask them to resolve the issue before the ticket breaches

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Service Managers’ Responsibilities (cont.)

� Weekly

– During each Service Manager’s weekly team call, show the team how many tickets are open and how old they are, and encourage them to close the older tickets as soon as possible

0 - 2

Days

3 - 4

Days

5 - 9

Days

10 - 14

Days

15 - 19

Days

20 - 24

Days

25 - 29

Days

30+

Days Total

# 5+

Days

Incident 16 4 4 2 2 2 2 3 35 15

Svc Request 27 1 17 17 7 8 1 13 91 63

Incident 12 2 5 3 1 0 1 2 26 12

Svc Request 25 4 29 8 4 12 4 8 94 65

01-31-13 @

2:25 pm

02-07-13 @

2:35 pm


� Monthly

– Service Managers send a spreadsheet to all members of their teams showing how many days each of their tickets has been open and ask them to reply with why tickets older than 5 days are still open

Case Problem Summary Status Created Date Today # Days Open Assigned To Why is Ticket Still Open?

18127334 KS Secure Connectivity Documents

Open-Pending

Customer 1/10/2013 1/31/2013 21

This has been approved but need

drops ran and power, I could close.

18132007 Equipment request

Open-Pending

Vendor 1/14/2013 1/31/2013 17

Equipment ordered - waiting on

arrival

18133594 Cisco IP phone request

Open-Pending

Vendor 1/15/2013 1/31/2013 16


arrival

18135385 New laptop order

Open-Pending

Customer 1/16/2013 1/31/2013 15 This has been ordered.

18136646 Free Cooling PC/Monitor Open - Pending 1/17/2013 1/31/2013 14 Lookin into it user was on vacation

18138283 New laptop request Open - Assigned 1/18/2013 1/31/2013 13


arrival

18138288

Matt Trandel will be transferring from

the BG plant to NATC Open - Assigned 1/18/2013 1/31/2013 13


arrival

18138550 Monitor faulty Open - Pending 1/18/2013 1/31/2013 13 Resolved

18140135 Problems synchronizing Open - Assigned 1/21/2013 1/31/2013 10 Resolved

18145543 Lost archive folders Open - Assigned 1/24/2013 1/31/2013 7

18147074 need more Ram for usbg6l056 Open - Assigned 1/25/2013 1/31/2013 6

18147429 Cannot print labels correctly Open - Assigned 1/25/2013 1/31/2013 6

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� Overall

– While not responsible for assigning tickets, Service Managers are responsible for making sure tickets are not left unassigned

Support Analysts’ Responsibilities

� Pending – Customer tickets

– Set a date and time with the user to resolve the request

– If it does not progress because of the lack of user availability, inform the user that we’ll close the ticket and help him/her when s/he’s ready

– We need to avoid waiting times like: “I’ll let you know when it’s a good time for me …. “

– After a TBD number of days of trying to contact the user with no response, close the ticket

� All tickets need to have a note included each time an action is taken by the tech

so management knows where we are with each ticket

� If a temporary resolution gets the user’s problem resolved, close that ticket and

open a service request for the permanent resolution

– Examples – user’s computer dies, s/he gets a loaner and the computer is now being repaired; a printer is down, users are redirected to a different printer and the faulty printer is being worked on

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What Service Managers Need To Agree On

� Support Analyst must contact user at least one time for three straight business

days before closing a ticket due to inactivity

– Each attempt at contact must be documented in the ticket

– Contact should be a combination of e-mail and voicemail

– Inform the business of the process

– There is a risk that it would upset some users to have their tickets closed

� Tickets with a temporary resolution should be closed and a service request

opened for the permanent solution

– Examples: defective printer, but user is routed to different printer; defective laptop, but user is given loaner

– This would create two tickets instead of one and we’re trying to reduce the overall number of tickets

– If the original ticket is changed from an incident to a service request after a temporary solution is in place, we only have one ticket, but the team doesn’t get credit for closing an incident within SLA

– The number of backlog incidents would decrease, but the number of backlog service requests would increase

Action Items for All Service Managers

� Assign all unassigned tickets to a specific team member

� Review our team’s open tickets to understand what’s in the detail and why they

are still open

– Incidents 5+ days

– Service Requests 30+ days

� Get a better understanding of why tickets are in pending status

– What are we waiting on from users and vendors?

� Remind our teams about the differences between incidents and service

requests

� Analyze Open-Pending Vendor tickets

– Identify the vendors we are waiting on

» Do we need to change vendors?

» Do we need to look at an SLA with the vendor?

– Determine if each ticket is truly an incident or if it should be reclassified as a service request

– If we’re waiting on computers from a vendor, do we have any spare computers available?; if not, we should have some spares

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Assigned To Provider Group | Aging 0-2 3-4 5-7 8-9 10-11 12-14 15-30 31-60 60- Sum:Avg Case

Age:

REXAM Service Desk 5 17 13 2 15 16 11 3 1 83 12.61

IMCE SCM LOGISTICS 6 15 3 3 6 12 8 53 34.64

IMCE ENABLING TECHNOLOGIES 3 1 2 1 6 9 9 31 49.77

IMCE COMMS AND COLLABORATION 3 2 1 3 8 3 9 29 42.86

IMCE SUPPORT NORTH AMERICA 1 7 7 1 7 3 1 1 28 12.86

IMCE SUPPORT EUROPE 1 2 12 3 2 3 2 1 1 26 9.50

IMCE FI APPLICATIONS 2 7 2 1 1 1 3 17 27.65

IMCE SUPPORT EUROPE 2 1 5 3 1 1 2 2 15 11.53

IMCE SUPPORT EUROPE 3 1 1 3 3 4 2 14 16.79

IMCE MANUFACTURING SYSTEMS 1 1 3 2 5 1 13 10.77

Action Items for Mark

� Work with Service Desk to produce weekly and monthly reports showing all

open tickets and how many days each ticket has been open for

� Identify teams and sites with the biggest backlogs and figure out how other

Service Managers can help

– Weekly Open Tickets Report

Timeline for Action Items

Action Item Responsibility Date Due

Agree on number of days to keep a ticket open if we receive no response from the user

Service Managers Wednesday, February 13

Agree that tickets with a temporary resolution should be closed and a service request opened for the permanent solution

Service Managers Wednesday, February 13

Work with Service Desk to produce weekly and monthly reports

Mark Friday, February 15

Assign all unassigned tickets to specific team member

Service Managers Monday, February 18

Identify teams and sites with the biggest backlog and figure out how other Service Managers can help

Mark Friday, February 22

Review our team’s open tickets Service Managers Friday, February 22

Remind our teams about the differences between incidents and service requests

Service Managers Friday, February 22

Get a better understanding of why tickets are in pending status

Service Managers Friday, February 22

Analyze Open-Pending Vendor tickets Service Managers Friday, February 22

Follow up to look at progress of Service Managers Mark Wednesday, February 27

strategy for reducing ticket backlog

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