The Most Critical KPIs and Metrics for Digital Experience Leaders

Gartner® predicts that by next year, “50% of IT organizations will have established a digital employee experience (DEX) strategy, team and management tool, an increase from 5% in 2021.” As companies create these teams, they are also creating new, high-level roles like the Chief Digital Officer (CDO) or Chief Experience Officer (CXO) or evolving traditional roles like the Chief Information Officer (CIO) and Chief Technology Officer (CTO) to focus on improving employee productivity and engagement. These leaders are all faced with how to best define and measure key performance indicators (KPIs) and ITSM metrics focused on DEX to ensure their strategies are on track.

KPIs vs. Metrics

So why are KPIs important? Organizations establish and measure KPIs to better understand if they are heading in the right direction. That’s why tracking revenue growth and profit margins, for example, are crucial to any business.

KPIs are the most important metrics an organization needs to measure to evaluate its strategy and performance. Not all metrics to measure performance, however, are KPIs. A significant difference between KPIs and metrics is that:

• Metrics track the status of business processes.
• KPIs track the effectiveness of your business initiatives.

IT Costs: KPI to Measure IT Efficiency and Digital Experience

When it comes to IT service management, certain IT metrics clearly impact business KPIs. Consider, for example, IT costs as a KPI that is impacted by the following operational efficiency metrics, among others:

IT cost ratio

The IT cost ratio is a critical metric that measures the proportion of IT spending relative to the overall revenue or operational expenses of an organization. This ratio provides digital experience leaders with insights into the efficiency and effectiveness of their IT investments. It benchmarks spending against industry standards and ensure that IT expenditures are aligned with the organization’s strategic goals.

By monitoring the IT cost ratio, leaders can make informed decisions about budget allocation, justify IT investments, and demonstrate the value of IT in driving business growth and operational efficiency.

ROI on IT investments

Measuring the Return on Investment (ROI) on IT investments involves assessing the financial gains or benefits derived from IT software, tools, and initiatives relative to their costs. It provides a clear indicator of the value generated by IT expenses, helping to justify current and future investments.

ROI measurements enable digital experience leaders to evaluate the effectiveness of IT initiatives, prioritize projects that deliver the highest returns, and make data-driven decisions that align IT strategies with business objectives. For example, Lakeside offers its Velocity Framework as a roadmap to help customers realize value and calculate ROI on their SysTrack investment.  Leveraging the framework, which includes tactical Value Blueprints, organizations can realize value through increased productivity, reduced hardware and software costs, automated issue detection and resolution, and ultimately enhancements to digital employee experience.  

Leaders can demonstrate the tangible impact of IT on business performance, enhance budgetary planning, and support continuous improvement in technology management.

Support desk ticket volume

Support desk tickets are not just onerous for organizations, they are costly. The internal cost per IT ticket ranges from $10 to $30 for many organizations. That’s why it’s critical for leaders to understand metrics around support desk tickets, including the total volume of tickets, tickets per user, and trends over time. This KPI provides insights into the efficiency and effectiveness of IT support operations. High ticket volumes can indicate underlying issues such as frequent system outages, user training needs, or inefficiencies in IT infrastructure.

By monitoring and analyzing ticket volume, digital experience leaders can identify patterns, allocate resources more effectively, improve user satisfaction, and implement proactive measures to reduce the number of support requests. With the right data, you can avoid some IT tickets altogether. Lakeside Software identifies trends in the issues driving help desk tickets based on accurate, real-time endpoint data. Using this data, you can proactively resolve common issues before the employee submits a ticket.

Measuring this KPI can lead to a more efficient IT support system, enhance operational performance, and ultimately support the organization’s productivity and growth.

Mean time to resolution (MTTR)

This metric indicates how much time IT takes to resolve an incident.  Quicker resolution minimizes downtime and improves satisfaction because employees can go back to work. If the technician cannot solve an issue and has to escalate it to a higher-level support agent, the user will have to wait even longer for a resolution. Plus, escalation to higher-level technicians becomes even more expensive, and they often need additional information that non-technical users are unable to provide.

As more time is spent on each ticket, wait times grow, ticket volumes increase, and downtime disrupts employee productivity. All these issues drive up the cost of IT service desk support. Lakeside software provides proven ways to reduce MTTR. With complete visibility into endpoint health, performance, and usage, L1s have the data they need to resolve issues quickly.