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Measure for Measure

How PG&E Counts IT Help Desk Costs

By Melissa Solomon

July 22, 2002 12:00 PM ET

Computerworld - To measure the effectiveness of IT at Pacific Gas & Electric Co. (PG&E), Ruby Gin, supervisor of the company's technology service center, looks at common help desk metrics. They include the following:

How many calls each employee takes per day.

The number of seconds it takes to answer a call.

How long employees are idle, waiting for calls.

The number of calls employees resolve.

How many calls are abandoned.

The tier in the service center where calls are abandoned.

How many calls employees escalate and pass off to other tiers.

The percentage of end users who use Web self-service features.

The number of incident reports that come in via the Web.

To determine the cost of resolving a call, Gin factors all costs involved in running the service center, which supports the utility's 19,000 end users. These expenses include cost per square foot of floor space, supervisors' and workers' salaries, software licenses, ergonomics costs, training, supplies and capital costs. That total is then divided by the number of calls handled and compared with PG&E's past figures and with competitors' figures.
PG&E spent $21.77 per call when it started measuring cost per call in 2000. By May 2002, it was spending $21.79 per call, says Gin. So despite inflation and additional work (creating new Web self-service features within the department), the costs have stayed about the same, she says.
The utility also measures user satisfaction. Its call-tracking system, Remedy from San Diego-based Peregrine Systems Inc., automatically sends an e-mail to users to gauge their satisfaction once their problems have been resolved.

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