Escalating Tickets. Datto’s #4 KPI With Which We are in Sync

This is a great Datto article on escalated tickets, coveringwhy they are importantas well as how to track them. However, this brings up the question:

What is the best way to escalate a service request?

We assure you, assigning the ticket to someone else and then dumping it into a different queue is not the best way. 

Here’s what the Assign and Dump SOP leaves out:

1. Providing a great Customer experience

2. Clarity on who owns the Customer communication

3. Missing out on mentoring opportunities

4. Maximizing efficiency, especially on the Level II and Level III Techs

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Let’s take a quick review of the Datto’s #4 KPI before we dive into our recommended Escalation SOP.

Datto's 4th KPI: Escalation sub-article takeaways

• Tracks Help Desk efficiency.

• Efficiency = fewer touches by different resources.

• Cost to the bottom line to have senior staff working on tickets.

• Escalation SOPs require soft skills to handle angry customers.

• Use a Live Report to see how many tickets involved a senior staff member.

• Use a Live Report “Escalations by issue type” to see where staff might need additional training.

• In order to track escalated tickets, you need to set the status to “escalate” and create a workflow rule that fires and fills out an “Escalated” UserDefined Field (UDF).

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Other ways to track Escalations:

If you do not have the “Escalation” UDF, don’t fret. While having the “Escalation” UDF is the best way to go, it will be at least 30 days before you have any data worth analyzing - and months before a clear escalation picture will emerge. 

Because of this, we strongly recommend creating the UDF and WFR today. Our experience has been that most MSPs already have a status, “Escalate.” If not, please create one. (Note: it is the WFR that moves the ticket to a different queue, not the UDF as cited in the Datto eBook).

In the meantime, you can still write a Live Report that will get you to the escalation data. First, filter tickets with more than 2-time entries. Then, suppress the data where both time entries are by the Primary Resource. 

If we had great data, which we don’t, we could also look for where the Role of the Time Entry is different than the Primary Resource Role. This assumes the Ticket stays in the original Resources name and the Escalated Sr. Resource is added as a secondary, also not something that is normal practice. 

We realize this might seem confusing. If you need this information sooner than later, let us know, we are always here to help.

Escalation SOP:

Use a warm Escalation procedure such as:

• Original Resource remains as the Primary Resource on the ticket.

• Original Resource puts good notes into the ticket as to why it is being escalated and what needs to be done.

• Escalation Resource does what their skill set requires, and no more.

• Escalation Resource puts good notes in the ticket as to what they did (teach the Original Resource to Fish).

• Escalation Resource returns the ticket to the Original Resource to complete the engagement.

• Original Resource retains ownership, including communicating with the Customer throughout the engagement.

• Escalation Resource is only burdened with what requires their skillset.

• If possible, the Escalation Resource engages from the Original Resource’s workspace so they can work together in a Mentor/Trainee relationship.

One thing I am noticing is that Datto’s 10 KPIs are all over the board. Some are great for Owners, some for Ops Managers, some for Service Managers, and some for Service Coordinators. 

We realize that in most MSPs we are talking about two or three people (very few MSPs have someone different in each of these roles). The perspective of which KPI is important - and what information is gleaned - is from the same KPI depending on your role. For example, when it comes to Resource Utilization (notice the spelling), check out our Metric, Metric, who has the Metric article.

To get the eBook from Datto, download it here.

Service Managers, Take Notice

As a Service Manager, here are the KPIs that are important to benchmark, monitor, track, and use coaching moments to improve the Service Delivery operations:

1. Resource Utilization (RU)

2. Service Level Agreement Performance (SLA)

3. Mean Time To Resolve (MTTR)

4. Reactive Hours per Endpoint per Month (RHEM)

5. Service Delivery Forecast (SDF)

6. Project Availability Forecast (PAF)

7. First Call Resolution (FCR)

8. Escalations (ESC)

9. Labor Profitability

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