KPIs to enhance IT Service Management effectiveness

KPIs are crucial for both IT Service Management effectiveness and customer experience success. They provide objective data to make informed decisions on service improvement, identify bottlenecks, find proactive solutions to service delivery, and measure customer satisfaction as a result. We'll show you how to achieve this with the help of artificial intelligence capabilities in Jira Service Management.

Having a data-driven approach fosters continuous improvement within the change management company culture, guiding organizations to grow and iterate based on solutions. Regularly monitoring customer-centric trends and promptly addressing related issues enables businesses to create mutually beneficial scenarios where the organization and customers win. KPIs are strategically used to achieve and sustain a proper service delivery flow. So, let's start with the basics:

What is ITSM?

Information Technology Service Management (ITSM) refers to the activities, policies, and processes organizations use to design, plan, deliver, operate, and control services offered to customers. It's centered around aligning Information Technology (IT) services with the business's and customers' needs, aiming to ensure that the services support business processes efficiently and effectively.

ITSM metrics

Within the framework of ITSM, a comprehensive suite of metrics is deployed to monitor and improve service delivery. These metrics are categorized into two main types: 

•    Operational metrics: These metrics focus on the quantitative aspects of IT services, including the total number of service-related events such as problems, incidents, or system availability. These are essential for understanding the volume and types of issues encountered, enabling IT teams to identify patterns, potential bottlenecks, and areas requiring process optimization.
  
  In the following video, you can check how these metrics are helpful for service-oriented teams. They help them understand the frequency and resolution of incidents to improve incident response efforts.

•    Customer-centric metrics: These metrics delve into the qualitative aspects of service delivery, emphasizing the customer's experience and satisfaction. Key among these are first response times, which measure how quickly IT support responds to a service request or incident, and resolution times, which track the duration of resolving an issue fully. Additionally, customer satisfaction metrics, often gathered through surveys and feedback forms, provide invaluable insights into the users' perceptions of the service quality, responsiveness, and overall experience.
  
  
                                                                           Track success with percent of SLAs met
  
  

Together, these metrics create a holistic view of ITSM performance, highlighting the efficiency and effectiveness of IT operations and the impact of these services on end-users. Organizations can pinpoint improvement opportunities by analyzing operational and customer-centric metrics, enhancing service quality, and achieving higher customer satisfaction.

ITIL 4 metrics

What are the most important metrics in ITIL 4? In essence, the significance of any specific practice or Key Performance Indicator (KPI) within your value chain depends greatly on its maturity level. When establishing your value chain from the ground up in a system like Jira, especially focusing on customer support, prioritizing service desk-related KPIs is often wise. However, your specific Service Level Agreements (SLAs) might need to prioritize certain KPIs over others based on contractual obligations or strategic importance.

The critical principle is to avoid measuring aspects that won't influence decision-making or actions. Instead, concentrate on tracking and enhancing those areas that are crucial to your operations. Remember, if something can't be measured, its improvement is difficult to gauge and achieve. This approach ensures that your efforts are aligned with enhancing performance and customer satisfaction, making the most of the data you gather to inform continuous improvement.

How can we improve metrics related to customer satisfaction?

Assessing customer satisfaction is crucial to measure your business's success. Standard customer satisfaction metrics exist across all organizations committed to enhancing the customer experience at every touchpoint of their journey. These metrics serve as vital indicators, providing insights into customer perceptions and the effectiveness of your service delivery. By tracking and analyzing them, businesses can identify areas for improvement, tailor their strategies to meet customer needs more effectively, and foster a culture of continuous enhancement in customer satisfaction.

Some of the best-known metrics are:

•    Net Promoter Score (NPS): Measures customer loyalty and the likelihood of customers recommending your service or product to others, based on a scale typically ranging from -100 to 100. It categorizes respondents into Promoters, Passives, and Detractors.
  
  
•    Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT): Evaluates short-term customer satisfaction with a specific interaction, product, or service. It's usually measured with a question like "How satisfied were you with your experience?" and uses a scale from 1 to 5 or 1 to 10.
  
  
•    Customer Effort Score (CES): Assesses the ease with which customers can resolve their issues, use your product, or interact with your service. A lower score indicates a better user experience, signifying that less effort is required from the customer's side.
  
  
•    Customer Health Score (CHS): A composite metric that combines various indicators (such as product usage, support ticket frequency, and feedback) to gauge a customer's overall relationship with your company. It predicts customer loyalty, potential churn, and overall satisfaction.
  
  
•    Customer emotions: Customer emotion is a measure of how customers feel about their experience with a company.

Can customer service be improved by addressing customer emotions?

Indeed, it can. This understanding has led to the development of the Emotional Level Agreement (ELA) concept. This framework enhances customer satisfaction by positively influencing their emotions through targeted support strategies. This can be easily done using Jira Service Management:

1. Installing the app Gomood from the Atlassian Marketplace, and start identifying issues with customers who are in a bad mood.
   
                            Identify customers' bad moods based on Gomood's app AI in Jira Service Management.
   
   
2. Refine your responses, fine-tune your tone, ensure your support agents grasp the issue and establish an emotional connection with your customers, or interact directly to gain a deeper insight into the causes of their dissatisfaction.
   
   
3. Ensure you are positively influencing your customers' mood.
   
                                         Enhance customer mood and experience following Gomood's metrics.

TIP: For advanced Atlassian users, remember that you can configure your Jira Service Management SLAs to reflect customer emotions and sentiments.

As evident, metrics, KPIs, and SLAs play a critical role in IT Service Management (ITSM) and Enterprise Service Management (ESM) for service oversight and fostering continuous improvement. In this context, metrics that capture customer perspectives, especially those concerning their emotions and sentiments, are gaining prominence. This shift underscores the essence of the renowned customer experience quote: "Customers may forget what you said, but they will never forget how you made them feel." This highlights the growing importance of integrating emotional insights into service management strategies to enhance customer satisfaction and loyalty.