News and Press
MetricNet’s Jeff Rumburg to Speak at FUSION 14
FUSION 14 has announced its speaker lineup for the annual conference in Washington DC. MetricNet is pleased to announce that Jeff Rumburg, Managing Partner of MetricNet, has been selected to speak in the Continual Service Improvement track at the conference. There were over 450 speaker proposal submissions for the FUSION 14 Conference & Expo, making the selection process the most competitive ever.
Mr. Rumburg will be presenting Session 302, “Optimizing the Tradeoff: Cost vs. Quality in Service and Support”. In this session, he will reveal a proven methodology to optimize the tradeoff between cost and quality in IT service and support.
“Cost and quality are the yin and yang of service and support. These metrics are in constant tension, and every service organization grapples with how to strike an appropriate balance between the two,” said Jeff Rumburg “With no restraints on spending, it is relatively easy for a service desk to ‘spend its way’ to high quality. Conversely, if quality is not an issue, a service desk can reduce its costs almost indefinitely. The trick is to strike the right balance between the two metrics, and then optimize everything else around that point.”
Those interested in hearing Mr. Rumburg speak on Cost vs. Quality in Service and Support should attend Session 302 on Monday, October 20, 2014 at 3:00pm. All those involved in the delivery and support of IT services, and the fundamental concepts behind service management, are encouraged to attend. This includes C-level executives, IT directors, Service Desk Managers and supervisors.
Mr. Rumburg is this year’s winner of the prestigious Ron Muns Lifetime Achievement Award for service and support. He currently serves on HDI’s Strategic Advisory Board and has been retained as a service desk and desktop support expert by some of the world’s largest corporations, including American Express, Hewlett-Packard, General Motors, and IBM.
About MetricNet
MetricNet is the global leader in IT service and support benchmarking. More than half of the FORTUNE 500 rely on MetricNet benchmarks to improve and optimize their performance. MetricNet is the first, and still the only company to offer downloadable service desk and desktop support benchmarks from their website. With a global benchmarking database of more than 3,000 IT service and support benchmarks, MetricNet has the most comprehensive database of process and performance metrics in the industry.
News and Press
Jeff Rumburg To Present The Zen of Support at HDI Capital Area Meeting
Jeff Rumburg, co-founder and Managing Partner of MetricNet, has been invited to speak at HDIs Capital Area Chapter May Meeting. Mr Rumburg will be presenting The Zen of Support to a live audience on Wednesday, May 21, 2014 at 12:00pm EDT. In this presentation, Mr. Rumburg will discuss what it means to be a Strategic Support organization, and provide case study examples of support organizations that operate in a Strategic Support Paradigm.
The words ‘Customer Support’ and ‘Customer Service’ accurately describe the role of Service Desk and Desktop Support Professionals. Unfortunately, these words sometimes carry negative connotations, and do not accurately convey the strategic potential of user support, said Mr. Rumburg. “The result is that most organizations do not fully exploit the inherent leverage of user support to achieve a competitive advantage for IT.
MetricNet’s global benchmarking data suggests that there are multiple sources of leverage in a Strategic Support Organization and several underutilized metrics that can measure progress towards strategic significance. At the HDI Capital Area Meeting, Mr. Rumburg will identify and define two critical metrics and three sources of leverage supported by the empirical evidence from thousands of IT Service and Support benchmarks.
HDIs Capital Area Chapter has reserved a limited number of complimentary guest passes for the May Meeting. Those interested in attending should register in advance. The event will take place at Time Warner Cable, 13820 Sunrise Valley Drive, Herndon, Virginia 20171. A question and answer session will take place after the presentation. Attendees will receive a copy of the presentation slides. All Capital area IT Service and Support professionals and their guests are encouraged to attend the meeting.
Mr. Rumburg is this years winner of the prestigious Ron Muns Lifetime Achievement Award for service and support. He currently serves on HDI’s Strategic Advisory Board and has been retained as a service desk and desktop support expert by some of the world’s largest corporations, including American Express, Hewlett-Packard, General Motors, and IBM.
About MetricNet
MetricNet is the global leader in IT Service and Support Benchmarking. They are the first, and still the only company to offer downloadable contact center, service desk and desktop support benchmarks from their website. With a global benchmarking database of more than 3,000 IT service and support benchmarks, MetricNet has the most comprehensive database of process and performance metrics in the industry.
News and Press
IT Service and Support Empowered by HDI 2014
The HDI Conference in Orlando, FL was a smashing success! Those in attendance gained valuable insight into Metrics and Measurements, Service Management Excellence, Team Dynamics, The Customer Experience and more. MetricNet’s role in the conference spanned the gamut this year. Jeff Rumburg, Managing Partner of MetricNet, presented two sessions, served as the track chair for Metrics and Measurements and received the prestigious Ron Muns Lifetime Achievement Award!
On Day 1, Ron Muns, HDI’s founder and the father of the technical service and support industry, made an appearance that was both inspiring and insightful. In it, he said, “Don’t ask what you can get, ask what you can give”. A powerful statement which many professionals in the standing room only crowd will without a doubt carry with them throughout their career. Shortly thereafter, the 2014 Ron Muns Lifetime Achievement Award was presented to Jeff Rumburg. Congratulations Jeff!
The general session went out with a bang when Bruce Turkel, keynote speaker, shared his passion for harmonica with over 
2,000 Service and Support professionals. In a challenge that was both hilarious and innovative, Bruce left the crowd with a new sense of empowerment. In the foreseeable future, we’ll all be asking ourselves “Why didn’t I see it like that before?”. See clips from this session in the highlight reel.
The true value of the HDI conference lies in the educational sessions presented by industry leaders who spend their lives hopelessly devoted to the success of our industry. Speakers are carefully selected by HDI track chairs so as to add immeasurable value to the overall conference experience. 2014 track chairs included Jeff Rumburg, Ron Muns Lifetime Achievement Award Recipient, Mike Russell, a twenty-seven year veteran of the IT field, Lisa Templeton, certified HDI Support Center Manager, and Chris Farver, a leader in BMC’s Global Project Management Office. Through them, an impressive lineup was formed.
Jeff Rumburg presented session 309, The 80/20 Rule for Desktop KPI’s and session 607, Leveraging KPI’s to Maximize the ROI of Support. Attendees of session 309 now understand the importance of adopting a holistic approach to performance measurement and management. And in session 607, Jeff urged the audience to understand and communicate ROI on a regular basis. This critical change will give Service and Support professionals the ability to justify investments in people and technology. A full session guide as well as copies of the presentation slides can be found onHDI’s website.
From start to finish, day 3 of the conference rocked the house! A packed crowd for the Randi Zuckerberg keynote was awoken with an ACDC tribute, strobe lights and dancing. Energized attendees filled the session rooms and cheers could be heard throughout the halls as speakers empowered them to better the industry. Conference attendees then flocked to the Coquina Lawn at Gaylord Palms Resort for the infamous conference party. Adorned with 80’s gear, glow sticks and airbrushed tattoos, the crowd rocked out to the music of Nerd Ranger complete with KISS Stilt Walkers.
The highlight of day 4 was, hands down, Roy Atkinson’s musical interlude of Come Together complete with amended lyrics all about metrics.
We’ve only scratched the surface in this post, but suffice it to say, all those in attendance left brimming with new knowledge, action items and the drive necessary to take their organization to the next level.
HDI announced that the conference would be heading back to Vegas for 2015… Hope to see you there!
News and Press
Jeff Rumburg Honored with Ron Muns Lifetime Achievement Award
Please join us in congratulating Jeff Rumburg, Managing Partner at MetricNet! Jeff was presented with the Ron Muns Lifetime
Image Credit: HDI
Achievement Award at the HDI Conference & Expo in Orlando, FL.
Mr. Rumburg, who launched the industry’s first service desk benchmark, and designed the first ROI model for technical service and support, joins the elite list of industry luminaries who have won the award, including Malcolm Fry and Ron Muns. Award recipients are carefully selected by HDI’s panel of judges. Considerations include tenure in the technical service and support industry, noteworthy contributions, and the candidate’s dedication to professional growth as well as the growth of the industry as a whole.
In 2008, HDI created the Ron Muns Lifetime Achievement Award to honor HDI’s founder and the father of the technical service and support industry. This award recognizes the lasting contributions, leadership, enthusiasm, and tireless efforts of industry luminaries who’ve committed themselves to elevating and improving the reputation of the technical service and support profession.
Those interested in hearing Mr. Rumburg speak at this year’s conference should attend session 309, The 80/20 Rule for Desktop KPI’s on Wednesday April 2, 2014, at 3:00 pm, and session 607, Leveraging KPI’s to Maximize the ROI of Support on Thursday, April 3, 2014 at 2:45 pm.
For more information about the award, click here.
News and Press
Company Newsletter | March 2014
This month we begin a two part series on Return on Investment for service and support. In part 1, we define how value is created in IT service and support. Next month, in part 2, we will go through a case study that calculates the ROI for a particular support organization.
Read more »
Our entire Metric of the Month library is now available in one place! This comprehensive training resource, created specifically for HDI 2014, will only be up for a limited time. In addition to the Metric of the Month ebook, we have also published a shareable PDF that contains all of our top free training webcasts!
Read more »
Customer satisfaction is a losing proposition. Satisfied customers are not loyal customers. They are not necessarily customers that want to do business with you and they are not customers that are going to propagate positive word of mouth referrals.
Click Here »
Attendees of this webcast will learn how the industry’s top performing Desktop Support groups track and trend their performance, how to use KPI’s diagnostically to achieve World-Class Performance and more!
MetricNet’s sessions last year were standing room only! So this year, we’ve added some new and exciting opportunities to connect.
MetricNet has pioneered a number of innovative techniques to ensure that you receive fast, accurate benchmarks, with a minimum of time and effort!
About MetricNet
MetricNet is the first, and still the only company to offer downloadable service desk, desktop support, and call center benchmarks from its website. With a global benchmarking database of more than 3,000 IT service desk, desktop support, and call center benchmarks, MetricNet has the most comprehensive database of process and performance metrics in the industry.
About Jeff Rumburg
Jeff Rumburg – Co-Founder & Managing Partner
Jeff Rumburg is a co-founder and Managing Partner at MetricNet, LLC. Jeff is responsible for global strategy, product development, and financial operations for the company. As a leading expert in benchmarking and re-engineering, Mr. Rumburg authored a best selling book on benchmarking, and has been retained as a benchmarking expert by such well known companies as American Express, Hewlett-Packard, General Motors, IBM, and Sony. Prior to co-founding MetricNet, Mr. Rumburg was president and founder of The Verity Group, an international management consulting firm specializing in IT benchmarking. While at Verity, Mr. Rumburg launched a number of syndicated benchmarking services that provided low cost benchmarks to more than 1,000 corporations worldwide. Mr. Rumburg has also held a number of executive positions at META Group, and Gartner, Inc. As a vice president at Gartner, Mr. Rumburg led a team that reengineered Gartner’s global benchmarking product suite. And as vice president at META Group, Mr. Rumburg’s career was focused on business and product development for IT benchmarking. Mr. Rumburg’s education includes an M.B.A. from the Harvard Business School, an M.S. magna cum laude in Operations Research from Stanford University, and a B.S. magna cum laude in Mechanical Engineering. He is author of A Hands-On Guide to Competitive Benchmarking: The Path to Continuous Quality and Productivity Improvement, and has taught graduate-level engineering and business courses. Mr. Rumburg currently serves on the Strategic Advisory Board for HDI, formerly the Help Desk Institute.
News and Press
Recap of Best Practices in Desktop Support
Best Practices in Desktop Support was delivered March 11, 2014 to a live audience! Jeff Rumburg, Managing Partner at MetricNet, shared key success factors from the industry’s top performing Desktop Support organizations!
Did you miss it? Here are some highlights:
Intro | Then and Now – The Evolution of Desktop Support
-In 1988, the North American Average Cost per Ticket was $29. Last year, it was $62.
-In 1988, the North American Average Incidents Resolved on First Contact was 74%. Last year, it was 68%.
Quotable | The more technology you put at the disposal of a knowledge worker, the more likely will be the need for Technical Support.
Best Practice | World-Class Desktop Support organizations recognize and exploit three unique sources of leverage: Minimizing TCO, Improving End-User Productivity and Driving a Positive View of Corporate IT.
Poll | Approximately 33% of those who attended this webcast consider their Desktop Support organization World-Class. Do you?
Best Practice | World-Class Support organizations follow a common pattern when it comes to performance measurement and management.
Resource | Download our whitepaper: “The Economic Impact of Support What’s Your Value Proposition?” to learn how to transform IT service and support from a tactical cost center, into a strategic source of value creation for the enterprise.
Audience Comment | My organization has benefited tremendously through these webinars. Thanks for making these value sessions available.
Quotable | Bad news spreads far and wide, but good news doesn’t go anywhere.
Poll | Only 15% of those who attended this webcast have benchmarked their Desktop Support Function within the past year. Have you?
Stat | The average Mean Time To Resolve (MTTR) Incidents for US In-house Desktop Support is 8 hours. Tweet this stat.
Best Practice | World-Class Support organizations are very proactive about getting the message out internally to the organization.
Case Study | A MetricNet Peer Group Benchmark identified that our case study organization was overstaffed. By downsizing through turnover attrition, they were able to increase Technician Utilization from 46% to 60% which also drove costs down to well below the peer group average.
Q & A | Q: To increase value to the business, do you see desktop teams doing more Business Enablement activities like running productivity teams that educate or focus on returning end user feedback back to IT to drive improvements? A: While we haven’t seen a lot of that, it’s certainly something that can be beneficial to the rest of IT. After all, both Desktop Support and the Service Desk have more contact with end-users than just about any other part of Information Technology. For those organizations that do have a closed feedback loop (meaning that they take insight and suggestions from end users and they feed those back up the IT value chain to the rest of IT) it’s a smart thing to do, but not that many organizations are doing it right now.
Q & A | Q: Could you give examples of the details with the avg incident work time. Does this reflect such things as replacement of internal parts of laptops? Malware cleaning? Computer re-imaging? A: Computer re-imaging and replacement of internal parts would typically be a service request as opposed to an incident. Malware cleaning would probably be an incident. In terms of average work time, the data that was presented on slide 57 is a good place to start if you’re just looking for averages. The min to max range varies pretty dramatically so, to ensure a fair comparison, it’s recommended that you benchmark your organization to a comparable peer group.
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Download the presentation slides.
Register for upcoming webcasts.
News and Press
Company Newsletter | February 2014
The ratio of agents to total headcount is an indirect measure of managerial efficiency in service and support. When a support organization experiences costs that are higher than the industry average, it can sometimes be attributed to the ratio of agents to total headcount.
Read more »
We are excited to announce that MetricNet’s SlideShare content was among the top 4% of most viewed on SlideShare in 2013! Just in case you missed them, here are our most popular presentations:
Did you miss our recent webcast? Well, you’re in luck! You can now access the slides to ‘Unleashing the Enormous Power of Service Desk KPI’s!’
Attendees of this webcast will learn how the industry’s top performing Desktop Support organizations achieve World-Class status, key strategies for enhancing your Desktop Support performance and more!
MetricNet’s sessions last year were standing room only! So this year, we’ve added some new and exciting opportunities to connect.
The requirements for IT service and support in the medical care industry are so diverse, demanding, and challenging, that MetricNet has developed a custom service desk benchmark for professionals just like you!
About MetricNet
MetricNet is the first, and still the only company to offer downloadable service desk, desktop support, and call center benchmarks from its website. With a global benchmarking database of more than 3,000 IT service desk, desktop support, and call center benchmarks, MetricNet has the most comprehensive database of process and performance metrics in the industry.
About Jeff Rumburg
Jeff Rumburg – Co-Founder & Managing Partner
Jeff Rumburg is a co-founder and Managing Partner at MetricNet, LLC. Jeff is responsible for global strategy, product development, and financial operations for the company. As a leading expert in benchmarking and re-engineering, Mr. Rumburg authored a best selling book on benchmarking, and has been retained as a benchmarking expert by such well known companies as American Express, Hewlett-Packard, General Motors, IBM, and Sony. Prior to co-founding MetricNet, Mr. Rumburg was president and founder of The Verity Group, an international management consulting firm specializing in IT benchmarking. While at Verity, Mr. Rumburg launched a number of syndicated benchmarking services that provided low cost benchmarks to more than 1,000 corporations worldwide. Mr. Rumburg has also held a number of executive positions at META Group, and Gartner, Inc. As a vice president at Gartner, Mr. Rumburg led a team that reengineered Gartner’s global benchmarking product suite. And as vice president at META Group, Mr. Rumburg’s career was focused on business and product development for IT benchmarking. Mr. Rumburg’s education includes an M.B.A. from the Harvard Business School, an M.S. magna cum laude in Operations Research from Stanford University, and a B.S. magna cum laude in Mechanical Engineering. He is author of A Hands-On Guide to Competitive Benchmarking: The Path to Continuous Quality and Productivity Improvement, and has taught graduate-level engineering and business courses. Mr. Rumburg currently serves on the Strategic Advisory Board for HDI, formerly the Help Desk Institute.
News and Press
Early Access to Exclusive HDI 2014 Content!
Each month MetricNet highlights one Key Performance Indicator for the Service Desk or Desktop Support. We define the KPI, provide recent benchmarking data for the metric, and discuss key correlations and cause/effect relationships for the metric. The purpose is to familiarize you with the Key Performance Indicators that really matter to your support organization, and to provide actionable insight on how to leverage these KPI’s to improve your performance.
Our entire Metric of the Month library is now available in one place! This comprehensive training resource, created specifically for HDI 2014, will only be up for a limited time.
Claim your copy before it’s gone!
In addition to the Metric of the Month ebook, we have also published a shareable PDF that contains all of our top free training webcasts!
MetricNet’s free webcasts are one of the primary channels of engagement we have with our clients, They have always been very heavy on content and learning, and many of our clients have their entire teams participate.
Thousands attend our webcasts each year, and they are ranked among the best in the industry, Many of our clients have come to rely upon MetricNet’s webcasts as an effective tool for training, coaching, and improving the skill sets of their IT and call center professionals.
Access all of our past recordings in this HDI 2014 exclusive!
News and Press
Recap of Unleashing The Enormous Power of Service Desk KPIs
Unleashing the Enormous Power of Service Desk KPIs was delivered February 11, 2014 to a record audience! Jeff Rumburg, Managing Partner at MetricNet, provided a comprehensive overview of best practices in Service Desk Performance Measurement.
Did you miss it? Here are some highlights:
Intro | A Simple Model for KPI Excellence
-Measure
-Diagnose
-Prescribe
-Implement
Quotable | Data, by itself, is worthless unless you are willing to act on it.
Think About It | Are you deploying your resources in such a way that you achieve the best possible result? You should be!
Quotable | Customer satisfaction is a losing proposition. Instead, focus on customer enthusiasm!
Best Practice | Measure performance on an ongoing basis, but remember that LESS really is MORE!
Poll | 30% of those on our call DON’T track first level resolution. Do you?
Resource | Download our Service Desk Balanced Scorecard Metric of the Month for an easy 6 step process.
Best Practice | Diagnose by benchmarking performance and conducting a gap analysis.
Audience Comment | Your Best Practices numbers have been invaluable.
Quotable | If you understand what the competition is doing, you can emulate it to build a sustainable competitive advantage!
Poll | Only 33% of those on our call have benchmarked their Service Desk within the past year. Have you?
Stat | Target speed of answer is right around 8% of your average handle time.
Best Practice | Prescribe by defining actions to close the gap and improve performance.
Q & A | Q: How is your cost per contact calculated? Is it fully burdened or agent cost per call or something different? A: It’s fully burdened. We include agent salaries and benefits, salaries and benefits for supervisors and team leaders, workforce schedulers, trainers, as well as QA/QC people. It also includes travel, training, office supplies, telecommunications and the occupancy expense/facilities cost. It is a fully loaded cost divided by all inbound contacts regardless of which channel.
Best Practice | Implement your action plan and improve performance.
Case Study | Within 10 months, a bottom quartile Service Desk moved into the top quartile by using our Simple Model for KPI Excellence.
Resource | CIOs: Service and Support is a proxy for CIO effectiveness! Read the whitepaper.
Quotable | The key to getting results is to TAKE ACTION!
Q & A | Q: When you say customer satisfaction, do you also mean customer experience management? A: Customer experience management is different than customer satisfaction. Customer satisfaction is the metric and customer experience management is the process of managing the customer to ensure that that metric is good. The bottom line: Be responsive, try to resolve on first contact if possible, try to resolve at first level if possible, and give the customer courteous and professional service.
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News and Press
Free Training Webcast | Unleashing the Enormous Power of Service Desk KPI’s!
69% of customers said they were on hold for too long when seeking help from a company. – Harris Interactive, Customer Experience Impact Report
So how long is too long? What is the ideal Speed of Answer?
Join MetricNet Tuesday, February 11, 2014 for one of our most popular FREE training webcasts: Unleashing the Enormous Power of Service Desk KPI’s!*. Register your entire team for the LIVE event.
Remember…Annual Agent Training Hours are strongly correlated with Call Quality, Customer Satisfaction, and Net First Contact Resolution Rate! So take advantage of MetricNet’s highest rated free training session to improve the performance of your service desk!
Attendees will learn:
– How the industry’s top performing Service Desks track and trend their performance.
– How to use KPI’s diagnostically to achieve World-Class Performance.
– Best Practices in Service Desk Performance Measurement and Management.
-AND as always, a Question and Answer session will immediately follow the webcast!
Share the Knowledge! Let your friends and colleagues know about this webcast too so they can register too.
Don’t forget that you can share key points and follow along during the webcasts on Twitter using #MetricNetLive!
*Seats are limited, and you must register in advance. All attendees of the live event will receive a copy of the presentation slides! If you’re unable to join us live, please register anyway, as we will send you a link to the webcast recording.
