Our customer service department is consistently hitting their target for average ticket resolution time, but our customer retention is dropping because the reps are rushing clients off the phone to keep their numbers low. How do we design weekly Scorecard metrics that cannot be easily gamed by the team?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

When you measure a single activity in isolation, people will naturally optimize for that specific number, even if it hurts the rest of the business. This is a classic case of gaming the system. To prevent this, you must introduce a counter-balancing metric on your Scorecard.

If you are tracking speed, you must also track quality. For your customer service department, keeping average ticket resolution time on the Scorecard is fine, but you must pair it with a quality metric like customer satisfaction score or a weekly customer retention check. This creates a healthy tension. The team knows they cannot simply rush through tickets to hit their speed target if it causes their satisfaction score to plunge.

When designing metrics for any seat, always ask yourself what bad behavior could result from hitting this target too aggressively. If a sales rep is tracked on outbound call volume, they might make dozens of brief, useless calls. Pair call volume with a metric like meetings booked. By establishing paired metrics, you ensure your team focus is on genuine productivity rather than just green boxes on a spreadsheet. This keeps the data honest and keeps your operations aligned with actual business growth.