Deck 6: The Information Component: Service Desk Performance Measures

Question 1

The more clearly companies define how performance is measured, the more successfully the company, departments, and the service desk analysts can meet their goals and customers' expectations.

Answer 1

True

Question 2

Not having formally defined processes results in service desk analysts not having clear roles and responsibilities.

Answer 2

True

Question 3

One of the main benefits of analyzing data is to find out who is making mistakes and then take the proper corrective action.

Answer 3

False

Question 4

Automating activities, such as logging, tracking, and the ability to provide status updates to customers is very important for large, centralized service desks. Small or local service desks should focus more on customer service and their technical knowledge.

Question 5

Service desks are either proactive or reactive; there is no middle ground.

Question 6

On the Internet, exit polls can be used to help determine whether content is helpful to customers and therefore is increasing their productivity.

Question 7

Since most service desks benefit from capturing the same metrics, best practice states that there is a standard amount of data that should be captured.

Question 8

It is considered best practice to have the service desk handle service requests as part of the incident management process. This enables the service desk to accurately measure how effective their handling of service requests is.

Question 9

Since service desks perform different functions and support different industries, there are not common categories for data captured.

Question 10

When maintaining customer records, it is best practice to maintain all data in a single CMDB, accessible by all who are authorized.

Question 11

A database is a collection of related fields.

Question 12

One of the advantages of assigning an unique identifier to each incident record is that it can be used to link it to CI records in a CMDB, problem records or knowledge base articles.

Question 13

When assessing the service desk's performance, quality is the primary measure looked at, as it directly relates to customer satisfaction.

Question 14

Team performance metrics show not only that the service desk is working hard, but they show that the service desk is meeting its business goals and its customers' expectations.

Question 15

Some companies measure the total cost of operating a service desk over a given period divided by the total number of units supported during that period. This is known as cost per unit.

Question 16

Service desks that don't have formal SLAs are unable to use performance metrics.

Question 17

First contact resolution rate refers to the percentage of incidents resolved by the service desk.

Question 18

Customer satisfaction is a common SLA metric.

Question 19

Most unhappy customers tell companies about their dissatisfaction either in a written or verbal manner.

Question 20

When surveying customers about a particular incident, It doesn't really matter when the survey is conducted; any information at any time is valuable.

Question 21

Since benchmarking services are relatively cheap, it is a popular method of assessing service desk performance.

Question 22

Service Level Agreements are considered the most comprehensive way to fully measure service desk performance.

Question 23

It is important to measure individual service desk analyst performance because every analyst influences the team's ability to achieve its goals and expected service levels.

Question 24

If analysts do not log all incidents, management will still be able to measure performance. They will just measure it without facts.

Question 25

Availability, time idle, and average call duration are all examples of individual performance goals.

Question 26

One of the keys to a successful monitoring program is a checklist given to analysts that describes the specific criteria that management will use to measure call quality.

Question 27

Since management is familiar with the overall mission and direction of the service desk, they are really the only ones who should be involved in the goal and metric-setting process.

Question 28

The most important goal for an entire company is ____.

A)customer satisfaction
B)customer loyalty
C)saving money
D)having the latest technology

Question 29

Which is true?

A)In order to be successful, service desk analysts need to understand the goals of the service desk, but understanding the goals of the department and the company as a whole, are management responsibilities.
B)In order to be successful, service desk analysts need to understand the goals of the service desk and their department, but understanding the goals of the company as a whole, are management responsibilities.
C)In order to be successful, service desk analysts need to understand the goals of the service desk, their department, and the goals of the company as a whole.
D)In order to be successful, service desk analysts need to understand the key performance indicators (KPIs) and critical success factors (CSFs) requested by the customers.

Question 30

Service desks that recognize information as a resource and try to prevent incidents and prepare for the future are known as ____ service desks.

A)preventative
B)proactive
C)leading edge
D)centralized

Question 31

Reactive service desks ____.

A)often have multiple people taking ownership of incidents
B)automate activities such as logging, tracking, and providing status updates
C)capture all pertinent data
D)meet clearly defined individual, team, and department goals

Question 32

Proactive service desks ____.

A)experience high costs due to inefficiencies and lack the ability to forecast costs
B)allow numerous people to own incidents based on the incident's priority
C)have owners manage by exception and only follow up on incidents not being handled in a timely manner
D)perform little trend analysis as they have a significant amount of incidents and service requests to handle

Question 33

When a service desk is moving from a reactive state to a proactive one ____.

A)a systematic plan will enable this transformation to take place very quickly and efficiently
B)setting up efficient processes is not important; collecting data is critical to the success of the transformation
C)management should assume that service desk analysts understand the importance of gathering information
D)service desk management may encourage analysts to capture data to gain senior management's trust

Question 34

Data, such as a customer's name, address, or location is called ____ data.

A)incident
B)customer
C)status
D)problem

Question 35

Items such as incident type, channel used to submit the incident, and incident category (hardware, software, etc.) are examples of ____ data.

A)incident
B)customer
C)status
D)problem

Question 36

Items such as the person or group assigned to an incident, whether the incident is assigned, awaiting parts, etc., and the date and time the incident was assigned are examples of ____ data.

A)incident
B)customer
C)status
D)problem

Question 37

In most companies, the status of an incident is set to ____ when a level one or two analyst delivers a solution.

A)resolved
B)closed
C)pending
D)done

Question 38

A measure of the time and effort required to deliver services in relation to their cost is called ____.

A)effectiveness
B)efficiency
C)quality
D)economy

Question 39

How completely and accurately services are delivered is called ____.

A)effectiveness
B)efficiency
C)quality
D)economy

Question 40

How well services meet customer expectations is called ____.

A)effectiveness
B)efficiency
C)quality
D)customer satisfaction

Question 41

____ provide the information to understand customer expectations.

A)Service desk goals
B)Service level objectives
C)Service level agreements
D)Service desk objectives

Question 42

____ provide the information that the service desk needs in order to know whether they are continually improving.

A)Service desk goals
B)Service level objectives
C)Service level agreements
D)Service desk agreements

Question 43

Cost per contact typically ____ when contacts are escalated to more highly specialized resources.

A)decreases
B)stays the same
C)increases
D)It depends on the type of contact.

Question 44

Which is true about Service Level Agreements (SLAs)?

A)They ensure that both the service desk and its customers understand their responsibilities, and they describe how service performance is to be measured.
B)They should be simple, one to two page documents. If not, customers and IT staff will not take the time to fully read and comprehend them.
C)They are typically used to measure the performance of a service desk; other measures are used to measure the performance of the entire IT department.
D)They typically do not measure IT service characteristics such as security or availability, as these characteristics are measured by the security and availability teams.

Question 45

Who typically negotiates service level agreements?

A)senior IT management representatives
B)senior management representatives from the service desk and the customer community
C)the customers
D)senior management representatives from the IT department and the customer community

Question 46

According to the Help Desk Institute, about ____ percent of its members have SLAs with some or all of their customers.

A)25
B)33
C)50
D)81

Question 47

____ is the average number of minutes from when a caller is placed in the queue by an ACD until a live analyst gets on the line.

A)Response time
B)Average speed of answer
C)Abandon rate percent
D)Average wait time

Question 48

____ is not captured by an ACD.

A)Response time
B)Average speed of answer
C)Abandon rate percent
D)Average wait time

Question 49

Which statistic indicates that the service desk or a level two or three analyst initially delivered an incorrect solution?

A)incidents resolved within target time percent
B)level one resolution rate percent
C)reopened percent
D)abandon rate percent

Question 50

What is one benefit of organizations such as the Help Desk Institute, the Technology Services Industry association, and supportindustry.com?

A)Together they have agreed upon a standard set of metrics that all service desks should use.
B)They each provide versions of "industry standard" metrics, sometimes for a fee.
C)They all develop software solutions to assist service desks in producing "industry standard" metrics.
D)They will assist service desks in collating surveys and using them as a baseline for producing metrics.

Question 51

Which is true about overall satisfaction surveys?

A)They are not useful to identify areas of improvement and areas where the service desk is performing well.
B)They are typically performed within twenty-four to forty-eight hours after the service desk analyst closes an incident.
C)They are typically conducted monthly, depending on the number of service requests and incidents handled by the service desk.
D)They are typically used to measure customers' satisfaction with the entire IT organization rather than just the service desk.

Question 52

Which type of survey might be used to survey customers who did not contact the service desk to determine what, if any, additional services are required to meet their needs?

A)new services survey
B)overall satisfaction survey
C)performance survey
D)annual survey

Question 53

Companies benefit most from benchmarking when they ____.

A)have an organization such as Gartner, MetricNet, or the Help Desk Institute actually do the benchmarking
B)identify opportunities for improvement after analyzing other organizations' practices
C)compare their metrics with other service desks and strive to meet metrics that other service desks meet
D)have effective Service Level Agreements and strive to meet the targets that have been agreed upon

Question 54

____ occurs when a supervisor or team leader listens to a live or recorded call in order to measure the quality of an analyst's performance during the call.

A)Observing
B)Evaluation
C)Role playing
D)Monitoring

Question 55

____ requires analysts to demonstrate their mastery of a subject by taking a test.

A)Certification
B)Competency
C)Skills evaluation
D)Monitoring

Question 56

____ change as the employee's performance improves or deteriorates.

A)Job descriptions
B)Employee performance plans
C)Service level objectives
D)Certification targets

Question 57

Which is true about a skills inventory matrix?

A)It typically focuses on technical skills rather than soft or organizational skills.
B)It contains questions used during the hiring process to evaluate prospective candidates.
C)It is used to assess customers' skill levels and then to develop self-help options available from the service desk.
D)It is used by management to determine hiring needs and develop training and cross-training plans.

Question 58

_______ service desks are often so understaffed and overwhelmed with their responsibilities that they simply respond to events that occur each day.

Question 59

If service desks do not capture data, they will have trouble creating the _______ necessary to understand customer needs and expectations and may find themselves focusing on activities that are unimportant to customers.

Question 60

One way to demonstrate that a service desk is increasing customer productivity is to capture a(n) _______. For example, prior to implementing an automatic password reset feature on their web site, the service desk should capture the number of password reset calls handled by the service desk. Four months after implementing the automatic password reset feature, the service desk can capture the current number of password resets calls to the service desk and see if the number of calls has gone down.

Question 61

A(n) _______ is a location in a database that stores a particular piece of data.

Question 62

_______ data include the fields required to track service level compliance and perform trend analysis.

Question 63

A(n) _______ is a measurable characteristic that must exist for something, such as a process, project, or team, to be viewed as successful.

Question 64

Resolve 80 percent of reported incidents at level one is an example of a service desk _______, or an important metric that indicates how well the service desk is performing.

Question 65

Maintaining a specific cost per contact or achieving a certain customer satisfaction rating are both examples of service desk _______, or objectives that support the service desk's mission.