[APAC] Better SGG ticket load balancing by having a shared new tickets view
What is being proposed?
The APAC support managers propose that APAC support engineers work new tickets from a shared view that will exclude L&R tickets. As support engineers respond and assign themselves to a new ticket, that ticket will be reassigned to the support engineer's SGG.
Why are we proposing this?
This will allow Support Global Groups to better manage their workload by having support engineers pull tickets to their SGGs based on individual capacity, instead of being pushed to SGGs based on round robin.
We anticipate that this will relieve new ticket pressure on SGGs who may not be at full capacity due to various reasons, such as time off or simply having less people. We also expect that there may be fewer FRT SLA breaches per hour, but do not expect that this change on its own will solve the entire problem.
What are the reasons for proposing this?
The timezone distribution of APAC is wide, with the eastern edge of APAC having little work coverage overlap with the western edge. As a result, each SGG may only have 2 to 3 support engineers available to work new tickets at any given time. Having even just one support engineer take time off or be engaged in an on-call incident could drastically reduce SGG effectiveness.
The data supports this as well. Since SGGs were fully rolled out in May 2022, FRT SLA breaches per hour have increased by up to 3 times in some hours of APAC support business hours, even though new tickets created per hour increased only by 20%. This is in contrast to outside of APAC, where in one case FRT SLA breaches per hour has actually reduced by 80%, even though new tickets created per hour increased by 12%.
When will the change take effect?
We'd like to introduce this change on a Wednesday (APAC time), so that we can prepare the team through various touch points, including the weekly APAC Team Call on Tuesday.
The current proposed time for introduction is 2023-02-21 18:00 UTC.
Is there anything to watch out for?
Some new tickets cannot be reassigned away from their SGGs as they are part of a ticket-routing trial. We intend to address these by updating organisation notes to warn support engineers about these.
How will we measure success?
The primary objective of this change is to improve the quality of life for APAC support engineers. To decide if the change was a success, we will do the following:
- Call for support engineers to vote to retain or revert four weeks after implementation.
- Monitor new ticket breaches during APAC support business hours.
The change will be a success if either of the following criteria are met:
- A simple majority of all APAC support engineers vote to retain the change.
- During these four weeks, we attain FRT % achievement levels nearing that of the same period last year (est. 85%).
The change will be deemed unsuccessful if either of the following criteria are met:
- A simple majority of all APAC support engineers vote to revert the change.
- During these four weeks, FRT % achievement drops to 70% or below.
If unsuccessful, how will we revert the change?
We will disable the view and return to having support engineers handle new tickets solely within their Support Global Group.
This issue is part of the following efforts:
- Support Team APAC FY24-Q1 outcome: Customer results: Solve customer problems in ways which consistently create satisfaction, and even delight, for both customers and Support team members.
- Support Team APAC FY24-Q1 OKR: Begin a mindset shift to consistently deliver customer results and delight our Support Engineers