Measure the efficiency of your support team by calculating key performance indicators like FTR, RLF, MTTI, and Total Resolution Time.
1. First Time Resolution Rate (FTRrate): (NFTR / Nissues) × 100
2. Rework Load Factor (RLF): Nissues - NFTR
3. Mean Time To Identify (MTTI): Tdetect / Nincidents
4. Mean Time To Knowledge (MTTK): Tidentify / Nincidents
5. Mean Time To Repair (MTTRfix): Tfix / Nincidents
6. Total Resolution Time (TTR): MTTI + MTTK + MTTRfix
If you have 500 Issues, 350 First Time Resolutions, and 50 Distinct Incidents with a total detection time of 100 Hours:
In the world of IT Service Management (ITSM) and customer support, efficiency is the difference between a satisfied user base and a churned one. The Technical Support Calculator is a specialized tool designed to help support managers, IT directors, and operations leads quantify the performance of their help desk or engineering teams. Unlike simple ticket counters, this tool dives deep into the lifecycle of an issue, breaking down resolution times into actionable phases: detection, diagnosis, and repair.
One of the unique strengths of this Technical Support Calculator is its focus on the "Hidden Factory" of support—rework. By calculating the Rework Load Factor (RLF), you gain visibility into the volume of work created by failed first attempts. A high RLF indicates that your team is spending valuable time revisiting old problems rather than solving new ones. Furthermore, by isolating MTTI (Mean Time to Identify) and MTTK (Mean Time to Knowledge), this calculator helps you pinpoint exactly where your delays occur. Is your monitoring software too slow (High MTTI)? Or do your engineers lack the documentation to diagnose the root cause (High MTTK)?
Using the Technical Support Calculator regularly allows for sophisticated benchmarking. For example, implementing a new Application Performance Monitoring (APM) tool should theoretically lower your Tdetect. You can verify this ROI by running the numbers before and after implementation. Similarly, a training seminar should increase your First Time Resolution (FTR) rate. This data-driven approach transforms support from a cost center into a strategic asset. For broader context on these metrics, you can reference the IT Service Management frameworks on Wikipedia or guidelines from the HDI (Help Desk Institute).
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While it varies by industry, an FTR rate between 70% and 75% is generally considered the industry standard for service desks. Higher rates are excellent but should not come at the expense of average handle time or customer satisfaction.
MTTI measures your alerting speed (how fast you know something is wrong), while MTTK measures your diagnostic capability (how fast you know why it's wrong). Separating them helps you decide whether to invest in better monitoring tools (for MTTI) or better training and documentation (for MTTK).
In this calculator, an "Incident" refers to the root cause event (e.g., a server going down), while "Issues" refer to the individual tickets reported by users (e.g., 50 users emailing that they can't login). One incident often generates multiple issues.
Every ticket in the RLF represents a double-handling of work. If your RLF is high, your support costs are effectively doubled for those specific tickets, draining resources that could be used for proactive improvements.