Top 7 IT service management metrics you need to measure

How do you measure the success of your IT service delivery if you’re not closely monitoring the numbers that dictate the efficiency and effectiveness of an organization’s service delivery? ITIL or the IT Infrastructure Library, recommends several processes and practices for efficient IT service management.

As IT leaders, you can further distill these practices and process down to a few important ITSM metrics and key performance indicators (KPIs). This helps you measure the performance of service desk and its understand the impact on your business goals.

Many IT service management (ITSM) metrics can clearly show where you stand on the IT service delivery podium. But to truly understand and quantify your efforts and to ensure that you’re well aligned to your business goals, IT leaders need to know which KPIs to track, measure, and benchmark against to understand their service desk efficiency and quality of service delivery.

The Freshservice Service Management Benchmark Report (FBR 2024) considers seven (7) ITSM key performance indicators (KPIs) that are widely used in the industry to measure the performance of an IT organization’s service delivery and aspire to its goals. Continue reading to find out what each ITSM metric means for your business. 

Seven IT service management metrics you need to measure

1. Customer satisfaction (CSAT)

How can you tell if your customers and employees are satisfied with the quality of service you provide? The answer – CSAT. Customer satisfaction score, or CSAT score is a vital ITSM metric that will assess how satisfied end-users are with the quality of IT services your organization offers. CSAT measures end-user satisfaction levels after interacting with the IT service desk, typically through post-interaction surveys where users rate their service experience. It is a direct numerical measure of how well the IT team is meeting the expectations of end users. High satisfaction levels often indicate effective issue resolution, good communication, and a positive user experience. Tracking CSAT allows IT teams to identify areas where they excel and where improvements are needed. It provides a clear gauge of how the IT service is experienced by its users, which helps prioritize training and process improvements and prompts action plans to enhance service quality. Remember, the higher your CSAT score, the more your customers like your service. According to the Freshservice Benchmark Report 2024, IT organizations using Freshservice enjoy a customer satisfaction rating of 97.4%.

2. Average first response time

This metric measures the average time taken for the IT team to respond to a user’s service request or incident report after it is initially logged. A quick first response can reassure users that their issue is being addressed, reducing frustration and anxiety. It also reflects the IT team's efficiency in acknowledging and triaging issues. In case you want to know what your average first response time should look like, the lower, the better! Did you know that intelligent field suggestions are helping agents respond faster by almost 15%? Field suggesters powered by machine learning (ML) help auto-assign the correct parameters and field values to incoming service desk tickets. Automatic classification of incoming tickets saves agents’ time and effort, thereby helping IT teams focus on high-priority tasks and initiatives. By tracking the Average First Response Time as a KPI, IT teams can assess how well they are meeting user expectations for prompt communication. Long response times may indicate resource constraints or inefficiencies in the ticketing process, necessitating adjustments to improve responsiveness.

3. Average resolution time (ART)

How long does it take for your team of IT professionals to resolve an end-user’s issue? You can find out by measuring the average resolution time to tell you the exact time your service desk team takes to completely resolve end-user requests and issues. From the time the incident is reported to when it is closed, this KPI tracks the average time taken to fully resolve user issues. Similar to the average first response time, you should aim for a lower ART score if you want your end-users to be delighted with your service. The FBR 2024 study tells us that media and internet-based industries are the quickest to resolve customer queries, with an average resolution time of 19.64 hours. Quick resolution times are crucial for minimizing downtime and ensuring that users can return to their work as soon as possible. This metric is a key performance indicator of the overall efficiency and effectiveness of the IT support process. Understanding Average Resolution Time helps IT teams identify bottlenecks in their processes and make fixes to improve resolution speed. It also helps set realistic expectations for users on how long it will take to resolve their issues.

4. Average first assign time

This metric is also known as ‘in-queue’ time. Average first assign time measures the time taken to assign an incoming ticket to the appropriate agent or team after it is logged. The intent here is to find out how long incoming tickets take to be assigned to an agent or a group after their initial creation. The faster a ticket gets assigned to an agent, the faster end-user issues get resolved. Prompt assignment of tickets is critical to ensure that issues are addressed by the most appropriate agent or group with unnecessary delays. You can leverage AI and automation to automatically categorize and assign tickets to agent groups based on their availability, skills, and expertise. Efficient ticket assignment directly impacts overall resolution times and customer satisfaction. If you are not meeting your SLA for complete resolution time, this metric can be a diagnostic measure to understand how long the initial assignment takes.

Tracking this KPI helps IT teams optimize their ticket triaging and assignment processes. It can highlight areas where automation or process improvements can reduce delays, ensuring that tickets are handled more efficiently.

5. First contact resolution (FCR)

Usually, not all tickets get closed in the first interaction with the end-user. Some get escalated and take longer than a day or two to resolve. But you should still measure your first contact resolution rate. It measures the percentage of incidents or service requests that are resolved during the first interaction between the user and the IT team, without the need for escalation or follow-ups. This will help you set realistic expectations for your CSAT and overall IT service delivery.

High FCR rates indicate that IT teams are capable of quickly and effectively resolving issues, reducing the need for further/multiple interactions and improving user/customer satisfaction. It also reduces the overall workload by minimizing the number of open tickets.

By tracking FCR, you can gauge the effectiveness of your IT team’s front-line support and identify areas where additional training or resources may be needed to empower agents to resolve more issues on the first contact.

6. Resolution SLA percent

Want to know if you’ve met your SLA? Track this ITSM metric to know the percentage of all tickets that have been resolved within the service level agreement. If your Resolution SLA Percent is above 95.7% (this is the Freshservice benchmark for 2024, FYI), pat yourself on the back. You deserve it!

Meeting SLA targets is critical to maintaining user trust and ensuring that IT services align with business expectations, as it directly impacts customer satisfaction levels. SLAs often represent the minimum acceptable performance level, and failing to meet them can lead to dissatisfaction and even penalties in some cases.

Monitoring Resolution SLA Percent allows IT teams to ensure they are consistently meeting their obligations. It also helps identify patterns or systemic issues that could be causing delays, enabling you to proactively manage your service delivery and ultimately improve it.

7. First response SLA percent

Finally, you also want to measure the percentage of tickets for which agents have initiated a first response within the time frame specified by the service level agreement (SLA). You can calculate it by dividing the percentage of the number of tickets whose first responses were sent within the SLA by the total number of tickets whose first responses were sent in the selected time period.

Just as with resolution SLAs, meeting first-response SLAs is important for maintaining customer satisfaction and ensuring that issues are acknowledged on time. This KPI is particularly crucial when a quick acknowledgment is needed to set user expectations. Falling short on this metric may indicate the need for improvements to your service delivery processes or additional resources to handle incoming requests more effectively.  Voila! 

That brings us to the end of the list (and the article) of seven ITSM metrics you need to measure to truly tell if your IT service delivery is as good as you think it is. Tracking these 7 ITSM metrics/KPIs provides critical insights into the operational efficiency, user satisfaction, and overall service quality of your IT teams. By regularly monitoring and analyzing these metrics, you can identify areas for improvement, optimize processes, and ensure that they maintain a high standard of service delivery, in line with user expectations. Ultimately, this leads to better resource management, higher customer satisfaction, better visuals on your dashboards (of course), and overall, a more effective IT support function. It is also important to note that any major change management activity in your organization could potentially skew these metrics in a live environment. If you are in the middle of any change management process, ensure that your benchmarking efforts are on hold. To learn more about measuring your service desk KPIs, check out the Freshservice Benchmark Report here. Pro-tip: Most of these KPIs and metrics can see an uptick if your ITSM solution has a knowledge base, service catalog, and self-service capabilities.