Spring semester 2010 was about as busy as last Fall. Again we closed over 40,000 cases, about 2400 per week for the whole period, which includes a quieter week before and after the semester’s classes and the week of Spring Break, significantly quieter. We closed about 67% of those cases within the first 24 hours, which is good, but down slightly from last Fall’s 70%. Cases closed over SLA, Issues and Requests combined, were unfortunately up slightly from last semester to 6.0% of cases with SLAs (no Question cases).
UTO CRM Activitiy - Fall Semester 2009
Now that we’ve been graphing our new and closed cases for two semesters, the patterns are becoming more clear. The first week is always the peak after which volume slowly fades, with a possible slight rise at the end of the semester. Any weeks with holidays or breaks show large dips in activity. Closed cases show the same pattern, though the peak for closed cases is usually week 2 as we play catch-up with the first week influx.
Spring 2010 New Cases
Spring 2010 Closed Cases
With two semesters of data, we can look at an average pattern. After removing weeks with holidays and Spring Break, the last two semesters were averaged based on the semester week – week 1 is the week classes start, classes end on week 16 and finals are over on week 17. (Week “-1″ is the week before classes begin.) The trend line is derived from and laid over that average. Given this pattern and knowing when our holidays fall, we can make some predictions for the future, if needed.
Average semester new case volume trend line.
Typically, most of our cases are Issues, almost 80% of all closed cases, which is up slightly from last Fall; Request cases are about the same as last Fall, 18%, and Questions are slightly down at almost 3%. Of the Issues most are “Standard” priority cases and 0.3% – 91cases – were classified as “Critical’ Issues, the same proportion as last Fall.
Spring 2010 Case Types and Issue Priorities
We had a slightly better return on surveys – 2.7% of closed cases received a survey response compared to 2.1% last Fall. Of those, 98 surveys, 8.7%, were scored “unsatisfied” on one or more questions. Last Fall unsatisfied responses were only at 7.6%, so we need to keep track of what’s frustrating our customers. As you can see below, more people were upset about not being kept in the loop while their case was being worked than any other category. We need to address all their concerns, but we should keep customers updated regularly, especially for cases that take a while.
Spring 2010 Surveys with Unsatisfied Scores
As I did for last semester, here’s a histogram of how long it took to close our cases this Spring. It’s essentially the same as last semester, slightly less in the first 6 minutes (which probably means more accurate records rather than actually slower response times), but otherwise the same pattern. There’s a dip during the first evening/night after a case was created, and peaks at 1 day, 2 days, and 7 days. (This is a logarithmic scale – over 1 hour each time period is 1.25 times greater than the previous one.)
Spring 2010 - Hours to Close UTO Cases
Adding each segment to the last gives us an interesting cumulative chart which shows the total percentage of our cases closed at each time segment: 70% in the first day (actually 1.2 days), 77% at 2 days, 91% at 1 week, and 98% at 1 month (actually 34 days).
Spring 2010 - Cumulative Closed Cases by Time
This analysis is interesting for all cases, but even more interesting when focused on certain case categories and sources. Most dramatic is the set of charts for the Human Resources case category, the great majority of which are resolved by the HR Help Desk provider group. The first chart shows how long it takes to close HR category cases. Notice that almost half the cases are closed by the HRHD provider group in the first 6 minutes.
Spring 2010 - Hours to Close HR Category Cases
When translated into a cumulative chart, you can see that almost 80% of these cases are closed in the first half hour; 90% at 4.8 hours and about 97% at the end of the first day. Very speedy!
Spring 2010 - Cumulative Closed Cases by Time - HR Category
At the opposite extreme, cases classified into the Voice/Data/TV category take longer, as should be expected. At the end of the first day only 42% of these cases have been resolved, and even at 1 month only about 92% have been closed.
Spring 2010 - Cumulative Closed Cases by Time - V/D/TV Category
We can also use this tool to look at how long it takes cases to close compared with how the case arrived – by a phone call or through email. Not surprisingly, phone sourced cases are closed much quicker – 28% in the first 6 minutes, and 78% at the end of the first day.
Spring 2010 - Cumulative Closed Cases by Time - Phone Source
Email sourced cases, however, take significantly longer to resolve. For one thing, essentially none of the cases are resolved in the first 6 minutes, under 20% in the first hour, and only 61% at the end of day 1. By the end of the first week, these cases have almost caught up to phone sourced cases: 91% resolved for email cases vs 93% for phone cases. At the end of the first month they are neck and neck at 98.7% vs 98.6%.
Spring 2010 - Cumulative Closed Cases by Time - Email Source
CRM analysis blog entries will be arriving more sporadically during the summer, but please comment on this Spring semester overview. Have a great summer!
John Wilson
