We suspect our customer support team is gaming our weekly first-contact resolution metric by closing tickets prematurely or opening secondary tickets to keep their Scorecard green. How do we restructure this metric to ensure it reflects true customer satisfaction without encouraging bad behavior?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

When people are measured on a single activity, they will optimize for that metric even if it harms the business. To stop your support team from gaming first-contact resolution, you must balance it with a quality-control metric. Single metrics create blind spots. If your team is measured solely on how fast they close tickets, they will close them prematurely. To fix this, pair the quantity or speed metric with a friction metric on your Scorecard. For example, pair first-contact resolution with ticket reopen rate or a simple customer feedback score. If first-contact resolution is high but reopen rate is also high, your team is closing tickets without actually solving the client problem. The visual of both metrics side by side on your weekly Scorecard exposes the manipulation instantly. Additionally, define your metrics with absolute clarity. Write down the exact criteria for what constitutes a closed ticket and audit a random sample of five tickets during your weekly review. By establishing paired metrics and auditing the data, you remove the incentive to game the system. This ensures your Scorecard reflects operational reality rather than a false sense of success.