Support-to-Employee Ratios

[cjmtech]

Good day,

I'm looking for an authoritative source for deriving an appropriate support-tech-to-end-user ratio for the purposes of bolstering our support staff as the userbase grows.

I've heard various numbers kicked around for deskside (face-to-face) support, but our company does not have separate staff for the various technologies we have onsite. Our support staff is responsible for all workstations, servers, printers, copiers, fax machines, videoconferencing, and the booking/configuration of all conference rooms. As such, the narrow scope of a deskside support ratio doesn't do justice to the work we are responsible for.

Is there a certification/governing body that has industry-wide and industry-accepted ratios for the various types of support that can be provided??

Any help you can provide is most appreciated!

Thanks!

cjm

 

[skotman]

Well to give you an example, when I worked on a support desk for an ISP we had about 2000 customers, and on a normal day we would have 2 techs during high call in periods, other times (early morning and late evening) we would have one. After hours 9pm to 8am our phones would be fowarded to voice mail with a pager alert and 1 person would take calls from that per week. When we had huge system outages (a DSLAM or our modem bank would die on one occasion each) we would put the system status on voice mail and continue to answer calls and probably work very late into the night...ahh the nights on the cold room floor...wonder I didn't catch the flue.

Scott Heath

http://www.scottspad.com

AIM: orange7288

 

[willir]

CJM

I can't provide an authoratative advise. But from personal experience...

Our group seems to feel 1:300 to 1:400 for leverage is suitable.

But I found this number a little wierd since it does not take varies things into account...
- How standard is the desktop? A locked down desktop requires much less support. Especially when the users can not install their own software. The trade off is that a locked down desktop limits the ability of the person to conduct their work. Okay for a data entry clerk; a potential productivity killer for more technical jobs.

- What is the job environment and poepl mix? For example, a group of engineers require a lot of flexibility to do their job. New software, new gadgets, etc?

- What are the response and resolution times? I have worked where the resolution time was less than an hour -- banking and trade - time is money. Fifteen minutes down-time cost oodles. But support is a pressure cooker. How do you spell "burn out"?

And a four day resolution time. Issue here is what does the person do for four days waiting?? Here, I found people stopped calling for support and resolved the problem -- correctly or incorrectly, or found a work-around solution. Management seems to love this -- see, no support required.


So it comes down to balance...
- Flexibility vs Standards
- Short Resolution Time vs Down Time

One number I have seen frequently is six - six hands-on support calls per day. (Not sure what the Helpdesk would feel is adequate.) I have seen this unofficial number in a variety of work experiences.

Any luck on your end in your research??

Richard

 

[johnny99]

I don't think you realy can make any standard ratio on this subject. Installations are much too different to have a general ratio.
I have been in installation that had a ratio of less then 1:20 and other that had 1:1000.
The first thing to know is what the business expect to get from support.

And who should count in the ratio?

All IT people, only the helpdesk, what about infrastructure and operations? And the list keeps on going.

/johnny