Closure of Helpdesk cases

[l3golas82]

Hi All,

This is my first thread, sorry if its a wall of text...

Had a meeting and discussed on closure of Helpdesk cases (2nd Tier).

Have you guys in the Helpdesk environment encountered no reply if they require any further assistance required after the ticket they have logged is resolved?

Doesn't that delay the SLA when the issue is resolved after customer did not revert after many follow up emails and calls (unable to get through, line is engaged).

For straight forward request such as password resets request, how can we put in a statement if the customers do not revert within a specified timeframe (say after 2-3 follow-up emails) without offending the customers and also align to ITIL?

Or should we fine-tune this statement and include in the 1st resolution email once the issue is resolved.

Was wondering if you guys have any advice or comments on the email we have drafted out if you are in the position of the user.

"
Dear Customer,

With reference to this case, we would be grateful if you could verify you are still encountering problems.

If Incident / Request description is resolved / completed, we would like to seek your approval to close this incident.

We hope to hear from you by Set date. Else, we will proceed to close this incident / request as per our operational process.

If you have read this mail after Set date and still encountering problems. please do not hesitate to call or email us and we will log a new case for you. "

I personally find the term operation process very inappropriate if we send it to customer, what do you guys think?

Please advise.

Thank you.
L3golas

[asrilrm]

Hi,

Maybe this would not be the proper answer to your question, as I'm not in the Help Desk/Incident Management area.
But instead of seeking user confirmation by case, you should have communicated your policy to your users/customers.
Inform them that you have ITIL based Incident Management Process that involves opening/closing tickets, for that purpose you need confirmation that a broken service is up again, etc.
That's what happened in my company.

I would personally say that if afterwards there are still users who are hard to provide confirmation, your email would be fine because they've already known. Then it would be like a reminder.

Cheers,
Asril

[Diarmid]

Hi Legolas,

this is an area that very much depends on circumstances and culture. It starts off complicated because while you are interested in time to fix as a valuable measure, you typically measure time to user verification of fix because this is safer.

Don't approach it with a jaundiced view of the users and certainly don't try to impose a solution. It is unlikely that persistent strident emailing will be a good solution. It is more likely to lead to war.

If it is difficult to get confirmations then there are various mechanisms available (depending on how flexible your software is) to count from various key stages, stop "clocks" etc. However, the simpler the better, because a cumbersome solution could become a source of disputes.

The real solution is to hold a service review with the customer and discuss the what and how of incident resolution measures and then come up with a practical solution.

If it is a case of a few recalcitrant users, then probably the customer will undertake to manage the issue out of existence. But don't forget that there will always be delays due to absence.

If the environment mitigates against this solution, then other approaches need to be explored.

In any event, the key is for the customer to understand what you are doing and for you to understand what the customer staff are doing so that both sides realize that there is a common objective. Negotiate, don't demand.

[edit]

This is not the same as Asril's advice. I do not recommend using ITIL as a stick. Simply say to the customer that there needs to be a reliable way of measuring your incident management for them.
_________________
"Method goes far to prevent trouble in business: for it makes the task easy, hinders confusion, saves abundance of time, and instructs those that have business depending, both what to do and what to hope."
William Penn 1644-1718

[l3golas82]

Hi asrilrm and Diarmid,

Thank you for the contributions. I will share it with my team and see how it goes.

Will update you guys.

If there are any more things to add on, please leave a message.

I am just starting to read up abt ITIL. Going through the introductory phase only, a lot of things to learn.

[l3golas82]

Hi Guys,

everything is good. Team agreed on the fact that we should be negotiating rather than demanding.

So what is going to happen is that probably they will send a 1st resolution email without initiating for case closure.

Then subsequently, after a period of time (yet to confirm how long it is), then we will send an email for closure.