Using Helpdesk Statistics to Improve Law Firm User Support

A common business expression states, “you can only manage what you measure,” and nowhere is that more applicable than with legal helpdesk support. Measuring service levels, ticket volumes, conversion staffing levels, and user satisfaction are all important aspects of running a successful helpdesk, but only of true value if compared to other metrics, and more importantly, acted upon.

The Second Edition Guru's Guide for Legal Service Desk Support (www.bit.ly/theguruguide) provides such helpdesk (also called the service desk) bench- mark data and is based on 1.2 million user tickets collected and analyzed by Intelliteach from January 2010 through June 2011 across a variety of law firm sizes, locations and hardware/software configurations.

Along with key report findings, we found it useful to provide legal helpdesk managers/directors and IT professionals with some practical tips on addressing these statistics to improve overall service and support. See Figure 1 below.

[IMGCAP(1)]

Over 43% of 1.2 million service desk tickets logged are specific to various versions of Microsoft Office, 20% of those are specific to Microsoft Outlook. Fourteen
percent of all helpdesk calls pertained to various firm document management systems. While it will come as no surprise that Microsoft Office accounts for 43% of service desk tickets, there are some proven approaches to better manage these applications and related call volumes.

Analyze. Break down Office tickets by product and by sub-category. For example are there recurring issues with specific Word templates? Is additional training (workshops, e-learning, quick reference guides) required for specific functions such as tables or formatting. Do specific practice groups log more Word calls than others in which case they may be using Word differently?

Train. In the run up to the holidays for example, offer refresher mail merge training. Target regular callers and offer one-on-one coaching, and rather than generic “Using Excel” classes, offer specific task-related classes, i.e., “How to create your budget spreadsheet.” Also, why not offer occasional “brown bag” training sessions, weekly training drop-ins, and easy to access FAQs and knowledge base articles on common application issues.

Automate. What about the low-hanging fruit like the calls that take time, but are easy to fix, e.g., password resets? Could this be automated? Are there issues that the service desk is obliged to refer to second line support? Could the process be streamlined so that the user gets a quicker turnaround?

Conversions cause a significant increase in volume and add additional strain to existing resources, systems and service quality. Based on Guru data, ticket volumes increased by 42% during firm wide upgrades (average tickets per user per month increased from 2.0 to 2.85 during rollouts) and took an average of 90 days to return to pre-conversion levels. What can proactively be done to minimize conversion impact?

Communicate. Good communications helps explain the overall upgrade process, puts people at ease about technology changes, gets your users excited about new tools, and demonstrates the value the helpdesk delivers to the firm.

Test, test and test again. Doing a rollout without a pilot and even a pre-pilot is a surefire way to frustrate users and stress out support staff. Successful pilots include “real” users, not just IT or administrative staff, and feature a mixture of tech savvy and not so savvy users, the IT skeptics as well as evangelists.

Be proactive. When faced with a major application upgrade (a.k.a., pending major call volume increase), it's best to first properly set user expectations by communicating within; make sure that every member of IT understands the rollout process and strategy so that everybody has their “elevator pitch.” Put staff out on the floors in the initial few days after rollout. Typically the highest call volume is not on Day 1. Users who are “lost” will muddle through the first day or two and start to ask for help on Day 3 or 4. Leave behind some FAQs or checklists. Monitor the calls as the rollout goes on and adjust accordingly.

Less is not always more. Increase staffing on the service desk or extend the hours of coverage. If there are multiple offices involved in the upgrade, consider bringing IT staff from other offices to the first or previous rollout office so that they can learn and take best practices back to their own office. See Figure 2 below.

[IMGCAP(2)]

How are users reaching out to the service desk? Seventy percent used the phone and 27% sent an e-mail describing their technology issues. However, 86% of live/phone service desk tickets are resolved in the first contact compared to only 7% of e-mail tickets. Also, data indicates that, on average, tickets created via e-mail have a lifespan six times longer than those originated by phone

Pick up the phone. To reduce user frustration and speed up resolution times, best practices indicate that having analysts pick up the phone and call users addressing their e-mail inquiries will yield the most favorable result. It's no good sending back an e-mail asking the user to send a screenshot if the user does not know how to do capture a screen shot. Also, phone support will go much further in building rapport between the helpdesk and users and give employees the confidence to log future issues via phone. Although e-mail requests continue to climb and user “self-service” is often touted as the savior for the service desk, one-on-one, phone-based support by an application expert remains the key to efficient call resolution. See Figure 3 below.

[IMGCAP(3)]

Tuesday sees the highest call volume (20.52%) and Friday the lowest (16.81%). Law firms providing 24/7 user support see 10% of their call volume come from after-hours support, with more than 90% of this coming from specific fee earners/timekeepers. The average daily helpdesk talk times spent communicating with users are five minutes during regular business hours and eight minutes after-hours.

Re-think staffing. If we know when most calls come in, how can user support be re-configured to create more call efficiencies? One idea is to staff accordingly using staggered shift days. Firms that currently don't offer 24/7 support, could overload staffing on Monday mornings and decrease headcount on Fridays; ask the late shift to come in one hour earlier on Mondays, and start one hour later on a Friday, and have the early shift to leave one hour later on Mondays and one hour earlier on Friday. Also think about flex-shifts, so instead of a typical eight hour/five day work week, consider two, nine hour days and three seven hour days or something along those alternative lines.

In law firms offering after hours user support on an informal or semi-formal basis, it is often the server engineers or other core IT staff who are responsible for handling support calls although the type of issues typically involve remote access/connectivity or an attorney needing document formatting help. Bare this in mind, when matching staff availability, analyst skill sets and typical user needs.

In summary, helpdesk metrics and data can be useful if consistently benchmarked and most importantly managed and acted upon. A renewed focus on communication, training, workflow and automation as well as proper staffing, can go a long way in improving legal helpdesk quality and user satisfaction.

A common business expression states, “you can only manage what you measure,” and nowhere is that more applicable than with legal helpdesk support. Measuring service levels, ticket volumes, conversion staffing levels, and user satisfaction are all important aspects of running a successful helpdesk, but only of true value if compared to other metrics, and more importantly, acted upon.

The Second Edition Guru's Guide for Legal Service Desk Support (www.bit.ly/theguruguide) provides such helpdesk (also called the service desk) bench- mark data and is based on 1.2 million user tickets collected and analyzed by Intelliteach from January 2010 through June 2011 across a variety of law firm sizes, locations and hardware/software configurations.

Along with key report findings, we found it useful to provide legal helpdesk managers/directors and IT professionals with some practical tips on addressing these statistics to improve overall service and support. See Figure 1 below.

[IMGCAP(1)]

Over 43% of 1.2 million service desk tickets logged are specific to various versions of Microsoft Office, 20% of those are specific to Microsoft Outlook. Fourteen
percent of all helpdesk calls pertained to various firm document management systems. While it will come as no surprise that Microsoft Office accounts for 43% of service desk tickets, there are some proven approaches to better manage these applications and related call volumes.

Analyze. Break down Office tickets by product and by sub-category. For example are there recurring issues with specific Word templates? Is additional training (workshops, e-learning, quick reference guides) required for specific functions such as tables or formatting. Do specific practice groups log more Word calls than others in which case they may be using Word differently?

Train. In the run up to the holidays for example, offer refresher mail merge training. Target regular callers and offer one-on-one coaching, and rather than generic “Using Excel” classes, offer specific task-related classes, i.e., “How to create your budget spreadsheet.” Also, why not offer occasional “brown bag” training sessions, weekly training drop-ins, and easy to access FAQs and knowledge base articles on common application issues.

Automate. What about the low-hanging fruit like the calls that take time, but are easy to fix, e.g., password resets? Could this be automated? Are there issues that the service desk is obliged to refer to second line support? Could the process be streamlined so that the user gets a quicker turnaround?

Conversions cause a significant increase in volume and add additional strain to existing resources, systems and service quality. Based on Guru data, ticket volumes increased by 42% during firm wide upgrades (average tickets per user per month increased from 2.0 to 2.85 during rollouts) and took an average of 90 days to return to pre-conversion levels. What can proactively be done to minimize conversion impact?

Communicate. Good communications helps explain the overall upgrade process, puts people at ease about technology changes, gets your users excited about new tools, and demonstrates the value the helpdesk delivers to the firm.

Test, test and test again. Doing a rollout without a pilot and even a pre-pilot is a surefire way to frustrate users and stress out support staff. Successful pilots include “real” users, not just IT or administrative staff, and feature a mixture of tech savvy and not so savvy users, the IT skeptics as well as evangelists.

Be proactive. When faced with a major application upgrade (a.k.a., pending major call volume increase), it's best to first properly set user expectations by communicating within; make sure that every member of IT understands the rollout process and strategy so that everybody has their “elevator pitch.” Put staff out on the floors in the initial few days after rollout. Typically the highest call volume is not on Day 1. Users who are “lost” will muddle through the first day or two and start to ask for help on Day 3 or 4. Leave behind some FAQs or checklists. Monitor the calls as the rollout goes on and adjust accordingly.

Less is not always more. Increase staffing on the service desk or extend the hours of coverage. If there are multiple offices involved in the upgrade, consider bringing IT staff from other offices to the first or previous rollout office so that they can learn and take best practices back to their own office. See Figure 2 below.

[IMGCAP(2)]

How are users reaching out to the service desk? Seventy percent used the phone and 27% sent an e-mail describing their technology issues. However, 86% of live/phone service desk tickets are resolved in the first contact compared to only 7% of e-mail tickets. Also, data indicates that, on average, tickets created via e-mail have a lifespan six times longer than those originated by phone

Pick up the phone. To reduce user frustration and speed up resolution times, best practices indicate that having analysts pick up the phone and call users addressing their e-mail inquiries will yield the most favorable result. It's no good sending back an e-mail asking the user to send a screenshot if the user does not know how to do capture a screen shot. Also, phone support will go much further in building rapport between the helpdesk and users and give employees the confidence to log future issues via phone. Although e-mail requests continue to climb and user “self-service” is often touted as the savior for the service desk, one-on-one, phone-based support by an application expert remains the key to efficient call resolution. See Figure 3 below.

[IMGCAP(3)]

Tuesday sees the highest call volume (20.52%) and Friday the lowest (16.81%). Law firms providing 24/7 user support see 10% of their call volume come from after-hours support, with more than 90% of this coming from specific fee earners/timekeepers. The average daily helpdesk talk times spent communicating with users are five minutes during regular business hours and eight minutes after-hours.

Re-think staffing. If we know when most calls come in, how can user support be re-configured to create more call efficiencies? One idea is to staff accordingly using staggered shift days. Firms that currently don't offer 24/7 support, could overload staffing on Monday mornings and decrease headcount on Fridays; ask the late shift to come in one hour earlier on Mondays, and start one hour later on a Friday, and have the early shift to leave one hour later on Mondays and one hour earlier on Friday. Also think about flex-shifts, so instead of a typical eight hour/five day work week, consider two, nine hour days and three seven hour days or something along those alternative lines.

In law firms offering after hours user support on an informal or semi-formal basis, it is often the server engineers or other core IT staff who are responsible for handling support calls although the type of issues typically involve remote access/connectivity or an attorney needing document formatting help. Bare this in mind, when matching staff availability, analyst skill sets and typical user needs.

In summary, helpdesk metrics and data can be useful if consistently benchmarked and most importantly managed and acted upon. A renewed focus on communication, training, workflow and automation as well as proper staffing, can go a long way in improving legal helpdesk quality and user satisfaction.