Is a metric that is used to help manage an IT service?

What are service metrics and KPIs?

Metrics are measures that provide you with the quantifiable information you can use to track service performance or progress. In order to obtain metrics, you need to clearly define what you want to measure, and then have a method for doing so. For example, you can measure client satisfaction through surveys. Google Analytics can be used to track the number of visits to your service website. ServiceNow can provide reports detailing the number of incidents your service has experienced in the last month.

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are a special subclass of metrics that are most closely aligned with your critical business objectives. For example, if you have an objective of achieving 99.995% service uptime (as is common in infrastructure services such as voice and data), the following are examples of KPIs that would measure your success towards achieving this goal:

  • Service Availability: Availability of IT Services relative to the availability agreed to in Service Level Agreements (SLAs) and Operating Level Agreements (OLAs)
  • Number of Service Interruptions
  • Duration of Service Interruptions: How long the service was unavailable

Why do I need to establish Service Metrics and KPIs?

If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it! Metrics and KPIs provide quantifiable information about the health of your service, identify opportunities for service improvement and provide a measure of the progress toward achieving your business goals.

How do I establish my service metrics and KPIs?

Define your business objectives for the service and then identify the metrics and KPIs that will measure progress towards achieving these goals. Doing so prior to service launch is important, in order to serve as a baseline for future measurements. The Service Development team can assist with defining meaningful metrics and KPIs and then how to measure them.

I want to:Here’s how:When:Who is responsible?
Define meaningful metrics and KPIs Submit a request During the development phase and before launch Business and Service Owners and Service Manager

Learn more about Service Metrics and KPIs:

  • Measuring ITSM: Are Your Processes Making The Grade?
  • Developing a Quality Driven Measurement Framework

Last modified January 10, 2022

Your service desk solution may come with a baked-in set of reports, but these aren't necessarily the most critical IT service management (ITSM) ITIL metrics or key performance indicators (KPIs) for your service team to track. This metrics list is designed to provide brief definitions and explanations of 15 top metrics for service desk teams to track to help you achieve important business goals. Tracking the right metrics can help you more easily gain visibility into critical success factors, such as customer satisfaction, problem management processes, change management KPIs, and business continuity initiatives, and help you optimize overall IT service desk performance. At the end of the guide, I also provide one additional ITSM KPI metric sometimes overlooked by service desk teams (and borrowed from many IT organizations' playbooks) to help gain valuable insight into how to improve the customer experience. Watch this related webcast "Driving Consistency and Reducing Downtime with ITIL Change Management" to learn some practical tips for identifying types of changes, templatizing change requests and record creation, and automating change workflows proactively:

KPIs to Track for ITSM

  1. Incident Response Time - The number of minutes/hours/days between the initial incident report and its successful resolution. The average resolution time to respond to an incident is often referred to as Mean Time To Resolve (MTTR).

Why it's a good ITSM KPI metric to track: Low MTTR and reopen rates are key indicators of effective customer service.

  1. First-Touch Resolution Rate - First-touch resolution rate is the percentage of incidents resolved the first time, with no repeat calls.

Why it's a good ITSM KPI metric to track: High first-time incident resolution correlates with greater customer satisfaction and is a good sign of incident management maturity.

  1. SLA Compliance Ratio - This ratio is the number of resolutions needed to fulfill service level agreement (SLA) guidelines related to response time, workflow prioritization, cost, and other metrics.

Why it's a good ITSM KPI metric to track: A high SLA compliance ratio helps ensure you meet obligations without unnecessary loss of productivity or revenue opportunities.

  1. Cost per Ticket - You can calculate this metric by totaling the money spent to resolve each reported incident. Add up the total budget for staff and technology to operate the service desk, and divide by the number of tickets resolved.

Why it's a good ITSM KPI metric to track: Understanding cost per ticket can help you identify more efficient problem-solving methods, such as evaluating the average IT service desk to employee ratio. It's also one of the most straightforward ITSM financial performance metrics to calculate.

  1. Number of Active Tickets - The number of active tickets is defined as the current number of reported incidents yet to be resolved.

Why it's a good ITSM KPI metric to track: Keeping this number low helps ensure you're not overwhelmed by ticket creep or rising customer dissatisfaction if your tickets back up.

  1. Recategorized Incidents - Recategorized incidents are defined as the number of incidents misdiagnosed at creation. Sometimes, automated software tools or front-line service desk agents may be responsible for misdiagnosing incidents.

Why it's a good ITSM KPI metric to track: Improve this metric by cleaning up your categories and subcategories to help ensure accurate data collection upfront.

  1. Reopen Rate - The percentage of tickets revisited after initially being marked as resolved are defined as reopen rates.

Why it's a good ITSM KPI metric to track: Understanding high reopen rates can help you identify training opportunities for technicians or deeper problems with hardware or applications.

  1. Incidents per Department - Incidents per department is the total number of incidents initiated by each department within your organization.

Why it's a good ITSM KPI metric to track: This metric indicates which departments have the highest demand for services and identifies service gaps to allocate agents appropriately.

  1. Incidents by Type - This metric represents the number of incidents categorized by the affected device or application. By identifying the most troublesome devices and software, you can partner with each vendor as needed or consider other alternatives.

Why it's a good ITSM KPI metric to track: Tracking incident types can allow you to allocate your agents based on their skillsets to make decisions about training. Encouraging employees to submit service requests via the service portal can help facilitate more accurate data collection when it comes to categories and subcategories, which makes this metric even more beneficial.

  1. Incidents Not Initiated via Self-Service - It's also important to keep track of the number of tickets opened via email, by phone, walk-up, or any other request type bypassing a self-service portal.

Why it's a good ITSM KPI metric to track: When separated by incident type, agent, or requestor, this metric can reveal inefficiencies and opportunities to improve your knowledge base.

  1. Incidents With Associated Problems - This metric represents the number of incidents associated with known problems.

Why it's a good ITSM KPI metric to track: Based on the total impact of each problem, tracking incidents with like problems can help you prioritize major repairs, updates, or CapEx decisions. With smart technology like artificial intelligence and automation, modern service desk solutions can make it easier to identify related incidents indicative of problems.

  1. Escalated Incidents - Escalated incidents are the total number of incidents resolved by Level 2 or 3 team members.

Why it's a good ITSM KPI metric to track: An increase could suggest skills gaps for front-line team members. An uptick in escalated incidents may also indicate a need to increase the depth of your service catalog by creating workflows for those types of complex requests.

  1. Incidents Resolved Remotely - Incidents resolved remotely are tracked by calculating the number of incidents resolved without dispatching a technician to the affected hardware.

Why it's a good ITSM KPI metric to track: This metric can reveal possible limitations in remote access tools and workflows.

  1. Incidents With No Known Resolution - Reporting on the number of tickets unable to be resolved with known interventions is one of the more critical ITSM metrics to track.

Why it's a good ITSM KPI metric to track: This can reveal agent skills gaps or holes in your knowledge management system.

  1. Ticket Volume - Ticket volume represents the total number of tickets at any or over any given time.

Why it's a good ITSM KPI metric to track: Ticket volume can help identify trends to help predict what may be driving higher or lower ticket volumes. With this data, you can schedule agents accordingly, considering high-volume periods.

Bonus ITIL Metric: Customer Satisfaction

If your service desk solution provides automated customer satisfaction (CSAT) surveys, take time to monitor these results to see how you're doing. Since happy, productive employees are generally your ultimate goal, CSAT results may be the most essential ITSM ITIL metric. This post was originally published on July 11, 2017, and updated on May 9, 2019, and January 10, 2022, to reflect current ITSM best practices.

Is a metric that is used to help manage an IT service?

Is a metric that is used to help manage an IT service process plan project or other activity o critical success factor?

Answer. Answer: When used in a monitoring system to assess project or program health, a metric is called an indicator, or a key performance indicator (KPI).

What is service management metrics?

Service management metrics (at times also referred to as 'key performance indicators' or 'KPIs') are used to assess if the processes are running according to expectations. Defining KPIs is above all about deciding what exactly is considered "successful" process execution.

Why metrics are useful in IT service management?

If you can't measure it, you can't manage it! Metrics and KPIs provide quantifiable information about the health of your service, identify opportunities for service improvement and provide a measure of the progress toward achieving your business goals.

What types of metrics are used to measure the service?

Here are essential customer service metrics and different types of KPIs to measure customer service performance..
Customer satisfaction (CSAT) score. ... .
Customer Effort Score (CES) ... .
Net Promoter Score℠ (NPS) ... .
Social media metrics. ... .
Churn metrics. ... .
First reply time (FRT) ... .
Ticket reopens. ... .
Resolution time..