As disclosed herein an information technology service ticket characterization method includes receiving tickets from one or more client devices during a time period, determining focus windows within the time period where each focus window includes an event window, identifying tickets received within the focus windows, determining a proportion of identified tickets that are related to a service event, and based on the proportion of identified tickets that are related to the service event, assessing the quality of the service event. A corresponding system and computer program product are also disclosed herein.