3.2 Monitoring Service Progress

You should know the following terms:

• Ticket status
• Escalation
• Functional escalation
• Hierarchical escalation

Someone should be responsible for monitoring the progress being made on service requests. You just want to be sure that the requests are dealt with appropriately in the order in which they are prioritized. It’s poor practice to tackle tickets simply in the order they arrive. That can result in spending too much time on a low-impact ticket while a critical issue goes unresolved. All IT staff should review their requests and order them based on their SLT classification and aligned to the time period of the assigned SLA.

Ticket Status

Tickets can be monitored and prioritized quickly through their status. In some systems, this can be done visually with colors or symbols and the ability to sort tickets by status. The ticket status is data that should be easy to capture in your ITSM system. Some departments may require changing some status levels to be approved by a manager or supervisor, such as when a ticket is adequately closed. The following are some potential examples of status indicators used to monitor technology service.

Best Practices for Providing Service

While IT technicians or customer support staff are working on requests they have been assigned, they can follow these best practices to ensure the work is proceeding and keps others informed in case any issues arise. Some of these best practices include:

• Maintain consistent communication. Staff assigned a ticket are responsible for regularly communicating progress on the status of their work. While some staff or customers may want ongoing verbal communication through phone calls or status meetings, written communication is a better practice. It provides running documentation, often timestamped, and can help reduce misunderstanding. Even after verbal communication, follow up with something written, either through email or through the ITMS system.
• Communicate status changes in a timely fashion. Sometimes things come up that are beyond any one staff member’s control. Parts may need to be ordered, purchase orders may need to be processed, or approval may be necessary. Sometimes the person originally assigned a ticket can no longer resolve it (see Escalation below). When delays occur, communicate the reason for the delay as soon as possible and update the status indicator on the ticket. If possible, provide an approximate timeline for when you believe work can continue. If the ticket is being escalated, let the customer know who will be handling the request, how to contact them, and when they should expect to be contacted.
• Follow up in the way the customer prefers. You may have an online ITSM system, but a customer may originally contact you via email, phone, or even by text. That may be their preference and using the communications method they prefer can help build a stronger relationship of trust with that customer.

Escalation

If you run into an issue where you’ve gone through the Troubleshooting Model, following the steps listed in the Knowledge Base or service manuals, and the issue isn’t fixed, you may need to escalate the ticket to someone else. This can occur if the issue is more complex than originally thought or perhaps it involves resources that you do not have access to. It could also be something that you just haven’t learned how to do, yet. If you’ve followed all the steps you can, you shouldn’t feel ashamed or negative about escalating a ticket to someone else who can resolve it. It’s especially important to escalate a ticket if you aren’t going to meet the time constraints of the SLA of the ticket and someone else can.

Escalating a ticket simply means you are handing the ticket off to someone else. Staff may do this through their supervisor or the person who assigned them the ticket, or they may be able to do it themselves if the ticket has been assigned to a team. Sometimes, a customer may request that a ticket be escalated. Generally, IT Departments have two types of escalation:

1. Functional escalation. The ticket is reassigned to someone at a similar level that may have the time or expertise to complete it within the time allotted to the SLA based on its priority.
2. Hierarchical escalation. The ticket is reassigned to someone with higher authority or expertise. 

Before escalating a ticket, the staff member assigned the ticket should document the steps taken to try to resolve the problem, the resources used, and the outcome--even if that outcome is that it was escalated to someone else. Clear and accurate documentation is especially important for escalation, because that new person will read through that documentation first to determine what steps they should try and not waste time by duplicating the efforts that did not work.

Here are additional resources you may find useful:

• The Importance of an Information Technology Escalation Process on the Praecipio blog, an IT support organization
• The Right Time (and Way) to Escalate a Customer Issue on the smartkarrot blog by Anshi Bhadoria
• Ticket Escalation Process: 10 Tips to Manage them Better from ProProfs, a Help Desk system provider

Complete the following task or self-assessment:

• What status indicators does your IT Department use for tickets?
• What are the obligations for acknowledging and, perhaps, changing the status indicator of the tickets assigned to IT staff in different areas of your department?
• How will you ensure staff are using their time most efficiently by adhering to the SLA and SLT your department has agreed upon? 
• What is the process staff should follow to escalate a ticket?
  • How much documentation might be required?
  • How do staff determine when to initiate the escalation request?