Setting expectations with Service Level Objectives

Webster’s dictionary defines the word, “expectation” as the act or state of looking forward or anticipating the degree of probability that something will occur. How does this relate to the ITIL standards? Not setting proper expectations with the customer can result in dialogs such as:

CUSTOMER: I submitted a ticket to have someone map a new printer to my laptop, but nobody has come by or called me back.

HELP DESK:  I am sorry to hear that but we are busy with a network outage, it may be awhile before somebody comes by to assist you in your request.

CUSTOMER: Can you give me some timeframe on when to expect a visit from a technician?

HELP DESK: It all depends on when we get the network outage repaired; it could be then next 5 minutes or the next 5 days.

CUSTOMER: It is no wonder your area is referred to as the helpless desk. CLICK! 

Unfortunately, the above conversation is all too familiar in many help desks across the world because expectations are never set with customer. One way of setting expectations with the customer, even before they call or write, is to establish Service Level Objectives, such as:

Service Level	Description	Business Need	Resolution Time
Urgent	Site or System Outage	Major Impact	1-4 hours
High	Site Impacted	Pressing Business Need; No workarounds	4-8 hours
Moderate	Individual Impacted	Workarounds Available	1-2 days
Low	Individual Requests	Not Affecting Work	3-5 days

Ultimately, service level objectives will benefit the help desk in a number of ways such as:

Less repeat callers/tickets – with service level objectives established, customers are less likely to repeatedly call in order to get a status of their issue.Less upset customers – if the objectives are “advertised” on websites and IVR/VRU’s, the customers are less likely to be irate when calling a help desk if they already know that their issue may not be resolved on first contact and may be considered a low priority.Potentially reduces staffing – less repeat calls and tickets to the help desk, lowers call and ticket volume, and potentially reduces the staff needed to perform the volume of work.Assists in priority setting for employees – with objectives in place, the help desk staff have a clear understanding of what issues should take precedent (i.e., individual outage should be worked prior to a individual new request).If your help desk has not established service level objectives, your next step should be to have a project approved to begin establishing the objectives to help you manage your customers.

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 11th, 2008 at 10:26 pm and is filed under Service Level Management. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.