INTELLIGENT BRANDS // Software for Business
Freshworks Report : Companies resolved employee IT issues 23 % faster in 2021
Freshworks Inc , a software company empowering the people who power business , has announced the findings from its second annual Freshservice Service Management Benchmark Report , which measured key performance indicators ( KPIs ) for the IT industry across 62 million tickets in 2021 . The report revealed that global IT teams adapted to remote work in 2021 , resolving employee tickets 23 % faster than the year before as overall resolution time for IT tickets went down by seven hours .
In a world where employees increasingly rely on technology to get their work done at home , in the office , and everywhere in between , the Freshworks report confirmed that new technologies that enable chatbots and virtual agents are making a substantial impact helping employees and companies become more productive – and even delighting them along the way .
“ Making sure IT works flawlessly is essential for modern businesses to succeed ,” said Prasad Ramakrishnan , CIO of Freshworks . “ Analysing data from around the world , we found that IT teams mastered the challenges of remote work last year in large part by employing powerful yet easy-to-use technologies that help them do more , faster . Importantly , these technologies are also engaging employees at work , which is critical to help companies retain talent and grow .”
The report analysed anonymous , aggregated data from 86 countries , more than 4,200 organisations , and over 62 million unique employee support tickets . New tech features including AI-powered responses played a significant role in speeding up resolutions as bots deflected nearly 60 % of tickets . Companies with automations achieved resolution times 22 % faster than those who did not , and companies offering a catalogue of IT services through their ITSM software reduced resolution times 17 % compared to those who did not . Companies are taking notice and rapidly adopting more advanced technologies . Nearly 25 % of integrations included bots and workflow applications – a 40 % increase compared to 2020 .
While less than one percent of IT interactions were via chat , this channel provided significant benefits : employees who chatted with virtual agents saw customer satisfaction scores hit 100 % in some cases , while delivering 48 % faster responses ( 5.21 hours ) and 62 % faster resolution times ( 8.74 hours ) compared to those who don ’ t use virtual agents .
Freshworks analysed KPIs across 14 industries to understand how industries compare to each other :
Prasad Ramakrishnan , CIO , Freshworks
Happy hoteliers : Companies in hotels , tourism , and leisure achieved the highest employee satisfaction rating ( 98.01 %).
Real estate resolutions : Property development and building infrastructure companies have the lowest average resolution time at 18.49 hours , while leisure and hospitality has the highest ( 27.32 ).
Consumer products and services finish first in first response : Their average first response arrived in 8.23 hours , nearly 50 % faster than the industry with the slowest first response time ( healthcare ).
Retail and e-commerce IT departments fix it fast : They achieved the highest first contact resolution rate at 73 %.
The report also analysed regional differences . Notably , the report found that North American IT departments achieved the highest customer satisfaction rating at 97.92 %. However , it takes multiple interactions to resolve employee queries , leading to the longest average resolution time in the world at 24.27 hours . Conversely , companies in Latin America are the quickest to assign tickets and respond to customer issues within 8.24 hours and 7.60 hours , respectively . p
70 INTELLIGENTCIO MIDDLE EAST www . intelligentcio . com