What to measure in ERP support
Reaction time is the easiest figure to report and the least useful. Four measures say more.
In brief
- Reaction time is easy to report and says little: a request answered in ten minutes can stay open for a month.
- Four measures say more: time to a working solution, requests that come back, incidents caused by changes, improvements against repairs.
- Review the four figures every month and turn each repeated request into a permanent solution.
Support contracts usually promise a reaction time. It is easy to measure and says little: a request answered in ten minutes can stay open for a month. If reaction time is the only figure in the report, the supplier learns to answer fast.
Four measures say more about whether the system is looked after.
Time to a working solution
Count the time from the request to the moment the user can work again, not to the first answer. Measure it separately for requests that stop the work and for those that can wait, because an average over both hides the cases that hurt.
Requests that come back
A request that is reopened after closing was not solved. The share of such requests shows the quality of solutions better than any survey. A rising share usually means that symptoms are treated and causes are left in place.
Incidents caused by changes
Every update and every modification can break something that worked. The number of incidents that appear after changes shows the quality of testing. If it is high, changes reach users without being run on a copy of the database with real scenarios.
Improvements against repairs
Split the hours of the month into two parts: repairs of what broke, and improvements that users or management asked for. A healthy system moves towards improvements. When repairs take most of the time for several months in a row, the system has a problem that support alone will not remove, and it is time to look for the cause.
How to use the figures
Once a month, review all four figures with the supplier and the owner of the system on the client side. Look at the trend, not at one month. Ask what repeats: the same error, the same question from new employees, the same report corrected by hand.
Each repeated request is a candidate for a permanent solution: a fix in the system, an instruction, a training session or a change in the process. This is how support stops being a cost line and becomes a way to see where the system and the processes need attention.
What to put in the contract
Agree the measures before the contract is signed. Fix the classes of requests, the time to a solution for each class and a monthly report with these four figures. Reaction time can stay in the contract as well. It should not be the only thing in it.
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