Employee Utilization and Time Tracking
I am looking for recommendation on handling utilization and timekeeping for help desk employees.
I recently started a position managing a help desk that offers IT outsourcing for the SMB market. One of the struggles is to make sure my employees get their time documented so we can bill it to the customer. They recieve a call, work the issue (and hopfully solve it), and then type up their notes. If they get another call before the ticket is fully documented, it often gets forgotten in the rush. This results in low documented utilization.
How does your organiztion handle this? Any advice would be appreciated.
Clarification added 11 months ago:
In response to Ted's answer, we are currently using ConnectWise PSA and there are quite a few functionalities that we are not taking advantage of. One idea I had was to better utilize the escalation policies that are in place, eg. an escalation e-mail to a supervisor if a ticket state has been unchanged for 3 hours.
Answers (10)
Hi, Joe.
I worked on a help desk for awhile, and we had similar issues. We needed to know from management which is more important, taking the call and helping the caller or documenting the call and how we helped?
What I did was document as I went. We had callerID so I could enter their phone number into Expert Advisor before I picked up the phone to see who they were and what happened the last time they called. It took me 1 - 2 rings of the phone.
Then, after talking to them about the problem, I'd document a description before I started helping them.
Then, after helping them, I'd document the solution before taking the next call.
We needed clarification from management on our priorities, because some staff saw our highest priority as answering the phone as quickly as possible. It wasn't- it was getting the call documented so we could track the calls.
Ricardo A
IT & PM Consultant, MIT Portugal PhD student
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Hi Joe,
Some ERP systems have such functionality, called “Service Calls”, usually integrated on a CRM module. At a company I’ve worked (which had a help desk with almost 8 persons), we had an approach like this:
- The girl from the reception (who answers the phone) asked if it’s a service/technical call;
- If so, “opens” a service call (associated to a customer) which was “send it” for a stack;
- Each “free” employee “grabs” the service call and starts a time clock (and the time wasted was linked to the service call). At the end of the call, you could stop the clock and start writing the report.
- If another call was coming (and it didn’t finished the report), the employee leave the service call as “Solved”, but not “Closed” (since was a status that was assign only after a complete report), and answer the new call.
This system usually gives the time wasted of each call, by employee and by customer.
I believe you can find an “open-source” software for this, since this philosophy is well spread by ERP systems.
Hope it helped.
Best regards.
Tim W
Security Architecture Lead at Trusted Borders
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You are asking about time recording, billing and utilization tracking, but in reality you probably need additional functionality in order sustainably to deliver profitable services to SMB's. For example it's probably important to be able to:
- implement standard processes and procedures e.g. scripts for employees to follow, standard criteria for escalating to other staff etc.
- build up knowledge base of previous problems and solutions
- track skills, experience and interests of individual employees
- track customer relationships, develop repeat business and up-sell services e.g. maintenance contracts
- track customer assets (hardware, software etc) under contract and any spares that you hold, charging more per hour to deal with for assets that are not under contract (because they have not been maintained by you and present you with more risks/cost)
- track the nature of the service delivery activities being performed (problem investigation, explaining things to customers, sourcing spares, performing backups, training users etc)
- manage a calendar of planned and actual proactive customer contacts
- track the nature of any supporting/indirect activities being performed (maintaining helpdesk configuration, investigating new suppliers, travel, maintenance, marketing, time recording)
All this suggests you should be looking at a more comprehensive solution than simply time recording. Two software categories that I believe you should look closely at are:
1. Professional Service Automation (PSA) software - this specifically addresses the needs of service businesses. As they add so much value, there are few good cheap/open source PSA packages, but there are some.
2. Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software - these are not so specialised at service businesses (and may be more suitable for product-based businesses). However there are some good open source packages (for example SugarCRM) that can readily be adapted for services businesses.
You may also wish to look at online hosted business administration packages such as Netbooks. Although they have quite a high maintenance cost per employee, there is a low initial cost and initial implementation is much simpler and less expensive than employing specialists to set up an in-house solution.
Links:
Under the following links you can find open source help desk applications.
OneOrZero also supports time tracking.
Links:
Joe,
When I worked in phone support, we used WFM to not only document and track calls, but to also track direct and indirect utilization. Do your employees understand the utilization requirements for their position? I have often found that if you explain (If we don't document your time we cannot bill the customer, and therefore cannot pay your salary) the situation to employees that things start getting done.
I'm not saying threaten the guys, but having your support people understand that this documentation and time accounting increases their job security might help.
Julie
I have had my teams in the past build custom programs as well as utilize COTS packages such as Remedy. Since you are are running a help desk I would suggest looking at http://www.bmc.com/remedy This is one of the best help desk COTS packages in the industry with loads of features and the ability to track time.
One of the things you could do is enable CTI (computer telephony integration such as Genesys) into the application which could allow calls only to come to the agent once they have completed notes. If you are looking for a lessor cost solution you can have the agent put themselfs in a wrap up state on their phone. (This assumes your phone ACD has this type of feature available.)
Frank J suggests this expert on this topic:
Pat has years of experience in this area. I know she will be of assistance to you. thanks Frank
Frank Johnson
305-458-9199
Lars H
L'enfant terrible / Web Strategist / Speaker / Social Networker / Entrepreneur [LH79@gmx.net |TopLinked/LION/5000+]
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Call Patrick Veenhoff. He's an ace on the issue. Go to http://lars-hilse.de/contact , send me an email and I will forward you his contact data.
All the best and hear from you soon
Lars Hilse
Web Strategist | Speaker | Social Networker | Entrepreneur
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Lars Hilse is a globally recognized web strategist and (e-)market penetration & customer care specialist.
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Kimm V
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Hello Joe,
I see a couple of flags here even before you get to the question of how you're using existing software or whether other software might be useful or needed.
First, working the call and THEN documenting it, while more natural for most employees is extremely inefficient. If you want improved efficiency (and you should, to improve your utilization numbers), you would do well to focus first on whatever training and practice is needed to get your folks to document as they go, rather than documenting after the fact. It will be a challenge and it is not something that can be changed overnight but that ought to be one of your highest priorities at this point.
Next, you may need to take a look at your Average Handle Times and your staffing. Technically speaking, if the documentation for one case/call is not complete, then the agents aren't TRULY ready for that next call. Sure, there is always a tension getting to all of the work in a cost effective manner that necessitates prioritization so yes, it is important to think about which matters more, documentation or service levels. However, the fact that they're jumping into that next call before they're done with the first one indicates to me the possiblity of other issues.
Once you've verified you're where you need to be with respect to these two, then you can look at systemic safety nets such as notifying your agents (and their supervisor(s) if necessary) of outstanding actions or tickets. Having technology act as the safety net means you don't have to rely on memories made more unreliable by operating in a high-stress environment. Develop standard procedures that eliminate or at least reduce these issues, impress the importance of adhering to those procedures and train on them, and then make sure you have readily accessible metrics that allow you to manage to them as well. With this and the technological safety nets, you should be in far better shape.
Good luck and if I can help in any way, do let me know.
Kimm
Ajay M
Senior Manager - Branch Head
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The minute they log in to their systems their days actually start and the minute they log out their day ends.
Time keeping and attendance can be pretty sensitive issues in an organisation and therefore needs to be monitored in an invisible (intangible / non-invasive) fashion, yet a very transparent and comprehensive system needs to be in place.
It is best if the system is automated with the help of staff flash-cum-id cards or fingerprint sensors or eye recognition sensors which the employee can use every time they move in or out of their work stations / cubicles / rooms / office areas.
