Our customer support team is meeting their weekly ticket resolution speed metrics perfectly on our Scorecard, but our customer retention is dropping and clients are complaining about rushed, incomplete help. How do we stop our team from gaming these metrics?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

When you measure speed without measuring quality, your team will inevitably game the system to hit their targets. This is a classic symptom of a poorly designed metric that drives the wrong behavior. If a support representative is evaluated solely on how fast they close a ticket, they will close tickets prematurely or send quick, unhelpful responses just to stop the clock.

To fix this, you must pair your leading indicator of speed with a counter balancing metric of quality. On your department Scorecard, do not just track average resolution time. You must also track the first contact resolution rate or a weekly customer satisfaction score.

If the first contact resolution rate is low, it means tickets are being closed and reopened because the issue was not solved correctly the first time. This pairing forces the representative to balance speed with thoroughness.

In EOS, we run on data to find the truth, not to make ourselves look good. Bring this issue to your next Level 10 Meeting and use the IDS process to challenge the metrics. If a team member continues to game the numbers after you introduce counter balancing metrics, you no longer have a data problem. You have a people issue, and you need to evaluate if they truly GWC the seat.