We suspect that our sales team is gaming their weekly Scorecard metrics by logging low-quality introductory calls just to hit their activity targets. How do we structure our weekly data to prevent employees from manipulating the numbers to look green when real results are red?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

People behave exactly how they are measured. If you put a simple volume metric like number of phone calls on a salesperson's weekly Scorecard without any quality parameters, they will naturally make short, low-value calls just to make their scorecard look green.

To prevent employees from gaming the data, you must pair your volume metrics with quality or conversion metrics. For every activity-based metric on your Scorecard, create a balancing metric that measures the quality of that activity.

If you track weekly sales calls, you should also track the number of scheduled discovery meetings that result from those calls. If a salesperson logs one hundred calls but schedules zero meetings, the discrepancy is immediately obvious during your weekly review.

Similarly, in your service department, if you track the number of support tickets closed, you should also track the rate of reopened tickets or customer feedback scores on those closed tickets. If a technician closes fifty tickets but ten of them are reopened within forty-eight hours, they are rushing through their work to hit their volume targets.

This dual-metric approach creates healthy tension and maintains the integrity of your data. When you review these numbers in your Level 10 Meeting™, look for imbalances between volume and conversion. This allows you to address the root issue through IDS® rather than chasing false green metrics.