Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!think.com!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!emory!utkcs2!ornl.gov!de5 From: de5@ornl.gov (Dave Sill) Newsgroups: comp.admin.policy Subject: Re: User Satisfaction ? Message-ID: <1991May21.163045.25115@cs.utk.edu> Date: 21 May 91 16:30:45 GMT References: <1991May21.152727.27423@eagle.lerc.nasa.gov> Sender: usenet@cs.utk.edu (USENET News Poster) Reply-To: Dave Sill Organization: Oak Ridge National Laboratory Lines: 42 In article <1991May21.152727.27423@eagle.lerc.nasa.gov>, uudot@ariel.lerc.nasa.gov (Dorothy Carney) writes: > >Our upper management, which is not very computer literate, wants to >receive quarterly reports (oral: 15 minutes!) which are "METRICs" of >customer satisfaction. Ask upper management want they want to see, rather trying to second-guess them. >Do any of you have metrics for user satisfaction? How about response-time statistics for problem calls? >Somehow, telling upper managers about the mean time between failures >or the integrity of disk data doesn't do it. Neither does surveying >a random sampling of users with insipid questions like "On a scale >of 1 to 10 ...". How about system availability? E.g., a table showing the uptime/downtime for each system. A comprehensive direct user survey can be dome occasionally, but most surveys get terrible responses (like 10% are returned), so do it infrequently and make a big deal out of it. Perhaps combine it with some spot interviews. >We do have a Help Desk which tracks telephone requests for help ... >but focusing the metrics on problem reports would be negative, and we >want to be positive. I disagree. There's no lonely Maytag repairman in this business. If you don't have users calling with questions, you don't have users using your systems. A statistic showing that 95% of user queries are resolved within 24 hours would be impressive. You could also categorize the queries and implement a plan to address recurring problems. Then you could show how, e.g., queries about remote printing have dropped X% since you published a handout on the topic. -- Dave Sill (de5@ornl.gov) It will be a great day when our schools have Martin Marietta Energy Systems all the money they need and the Air Force Workstation Support has to hold a bake sale to buy a new bomber.