How to Improve First Call Resolution with Microsoft Office 365 Service Tickets

troubleshooting tree: Remove branches as high on the “fault tree” as possible. There’s no sense in wasting your time looking at diagnostics that won’t solve the problem. You can also save time by ensuring you’re asking the right, relevant questions.

Ask the right questions: Ask questions to rule out, not rule in. For example, “Do other devices have the same problem?” “Do other users in the same or other locations have the same problem?” “Is this a new or recurring problem?”

Cross-check tools/dashboards: Check dashboards or performance tools to confirm or rule out a “bucket.” For example, “Is there a known issue in the M365 Service Health Dashboard? Is there a known outage or connectivity issue? Are there other specific failure indicators?”

Leverage access to broad M365 activity/audit data: Information such as what a user did, when they did it or what an admin has done to their account can be incredibly valuable. It can confirm what was working and when, spotlights patterns of activity and highlights unusual events.

Here are some practical tools for pinpointing workload-specific issues:

• Network Health in M365 Admin Portal: These new reporting tools in the Admin Portal show you network traffic on users in your tenant. This reporting also shares insights driven by metrics Microsoft has gathered to highlight any performance irregularities or areas for optimization.
• Service Health Dashboard: As a primary source of data, it’s a bit incomplete and not always accurate. It does, however, tell you generally if there is a problem, so it can be useful as a supporting set of data points.
• Internet tools: Twitter, DownDetector and other internet tools can confirm service-wide issues through self-reporting and other diagnostics.
• Third-party tools: Network monitors and M365-specific workload monitors can give you more specific information on performance. They can improve your ability to track both emerging and ongoing issues with the service, put each service desk call in the correct bucket, differentiate between the types of problems and help you take the correct actions at the right time based on that information.

Quadrotech Nova Office 365 Management Platform increases first call resolution (FCR). Nova improves service desk operations and reduces ticket volume and escalations through Nova’s Delegation and Policy Control (DPC). DPC allows for granular delegation of rights to individual users and roles, allowing issues to be handled closer to the source before they need to be escalated. Nova’s Service Monitoring allows for a more proactive approach to monitoring Office 365 workloads. Nova’s Service Monitoring beacons can be deployed within the customer data centers, which provides quicker identification and resolution of workload performance issues. Finally, Quadrotech Nova’s Multi-Tenant Support MTS makes it easier to support and manage multiple customer tenants via single administrative portal.

Visit our website if you’re interested in learning more about Quadrotech Nova and how it allows you to achieve first call resolution or watch Paul’s webinar on the topic.

This guest blog is part of a Channel Futures sponsorship.