Monitoring and Improving Service Delivery

As stated previously, the service level agreement should have clear, objective targets so that it can be determined by the business and the IT service provider whether the service was delivered as agreed on. To monitor this delivery, the service level manager must produce reports that show whether these targets were achieved. Agreeing on the format and frequency of the reporting should be included in the service level negotiations. It can be difficult to produce reports that match the customer perception of the service delivered; a 99.7 percent availability measurement may not match the perception of the service received if all the downtime was concentrated on one business area, for example. The SLM must strive to produce service metrics that describe, as closely as possible, the level of service experienced by the customer rather than technical measurements that mean little or nothing to the business.

It is important that the service management tool used by the IT service provider captures the required information accurately. The time an incident was logged, responded to, resolved, and closed must match what the customer experienced, or else they will become cynical and believe that the service provider is “twisting the figures.” If the SLA contains commitments regarding response times, for example, the service provider must have the requisite monitoring tools in place to measure them.

Care should be taken in providing the optimal level of detail; too much information swamps the customer in reports, without indicating clearly whether a target has been met, but too high level a report may not give the detail required.

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Reporting and Customer Perception

A desktop support outsourcing company provided its customers with a large report each month, containing approximately 50 graphs. Each graph represented the performance against targets for a particular category of incident or service request. The level of detail provided actually obscured the situation; one graph showed that 100 percent of Type 20 requests were fulfilled within target but did not show that there had been only one of them. Another chart showed that only 85 percent of Type 30 had met their target, again not showing the number involved, which could have been several hundred. By producing this level of reporting, a superficial analysis appeared to show that the customer was receiving an acceptable service. This analysis did not match the customer perception, however, and engendered deep cynicism regarding the supplier. Not surprisingly, the contract was not renewed.

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In the early days of a new service, reporting may need to be more frequent, possibly weekly. As the service stabilizes, these reports can be reduced to monthly. Very well-established services may be reported upon only quarterly. There is a danger in this, however, because any poor service may have persisted for many weeks before coming to the attention of the SLM. The reasons for the poor service may be hard to identify after such a long period, and poor practice may have become embedded and therefore hard to change.

The service reports should be reviewed to identify any service that is deteriorating gradually, although no targets have been breached as yet. The reason for the deterioration should be identified, and action should be taken to address the issue so that the service improves and the service level target is never breached. This demonstration of a proactive approach to service provision confirms to the customer the service provider’s commitment to providing a quality service.

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The use of a simple SLA monitoring chart or SLAM at the start of each report, summarizing achievements across all the services, should be considered. These are often colored to show all services that comfortably met their targets in green, those where the target was under threat but not actually breached in amber, and those that failed to meet the targets in red. This “traffic-light” system of red, amber, and green is sometimes referred to as a RAG report and is very effective in concentrating attention and discussion on the services that merit it, rather than plowing through all the reports equally.

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Figure 5.3 shows a simple but effective RAG report, showing achievement against targets for six services over an eight-month period.

FIGURE 5.3 Service level achievement monitoring chart

Based on Cabinet Office ITIL® material. Reproduced under license from the Cabinet Office.

Measuring customer satisfaction levels is also the responsibility of the service level manager. These measurements are more problematic than a straightforward pass or fail against a specific target. Ensuring that there is a reasonable response to surveys is challenging; those who are most unhappy are the most likely to complete a survey. Asking every customer to provide feedback every time they have a service provided can prove irritating, with the result that the customer marks everything as satisfactory to get rid of the survey.

Despite the issues surrounding surveys, measuring satisfaction is useful. For example, there may be dissatisfaction at some aspect of service provision, such as unhelpful IT staff, even though all other SLA targets have been met. This would otherwise not be apparent. Similarly, customer satisfaction may be high following a major incident, because the customer appreciated the effort put in by the IT staff to overcome it or were very happy with the level of information they were given during the outage, for example.

The SLM should agree with the customer regarding the target satisfaction score and monitor and measure achievement against this. Reasons for poor scores should be identified, and actions taken, as with any other target.

Reviewing the Service with the Customer

The service level manager should meet regularly with the various customers to review the delivery against the service level agreement. The temptation to avoid face-to-face meetings by sending copies of the service reports to the customer should be resisted. The regular service review meeting between the customer and the service level manager is an important opportunity to build a stronger relationship and to increase each party’s understanding of the other. Regular meetings will ensure that successes as well as failures are discussed and that issues that could be destructive to the relationship are aired and dealt with.

As discussed with regard to service reporting, meetings should be held monthly or at least quarterly. It is a good idea to arrange these meetings in advance, for the whole year, so that there are no calendar conflicts later that could prevent the meetings from taking place. The meetings should have an agreed agenda, and minutes should be taken. Actions should be assigned to both the customer and the service level manager, and the progress against these should be checked at subsequent meetings.

A standard agenda might contain the following:

• Review of previous minutes and actions
• Review of any major incidents since the last meeting (what caused them, what was the impact, how were they handled, what has been done by IT to prevent recurrence)
• Review of service reports for previous month and for a rolling 12-month period
• Discussion of any issues arising from the reports and allocation of actions
• Review of service improvement plan progress against targets
• Discussion of future business developments
• Notification of any IT changes that may affect the service to be delivered

As a result of the discussions that take place at the service review, it may be decided by both parties that the current SLA targets are unsuitable or unachievable. If necessary, the SLA would then be renegotiated.

Taking Steps to Improve: The Service Improvement Plan

The issues identified at the service review may be addressed through actions allocated to individuals, as discussed earlier. Often the improvement needed is more fundamental than this and involves a number of actions by different groups or individuals. In this case, a formal service improvement plan (SIP) will be drawn up by the service level manager and agreed on at the service review.

The SIP will have an agreed desired outcome and timescale. Actions will be allocated, and progress will be checked. When complete, the results of the SIP will be reviewed to ascertain whether the plan has been successful and whether any further actions are required. The SLM should undertake the action plan in partnership with the CSI manager. The CSI approach, which we cover in detail in Chapter 13, should be the basis of an SIP: understanding the vision, baselining the current situation, setting measurable objectives, and reviewing the objectives to understand whether the plan has been effective. The plan should also be registered in the CSI register (the CSI register is discussed in more detail in Chapter 13).

When deciding whether an SIP is required, the SLM should consider the cost of any improvement actions and the business benefit to be achieved.