Measure resolution and satisfaction, not the vanity metrics that reward the wrong behaviour

Measure resolution and satisfaction, not the vanity metrics that reward the wrong behaviour

The wrong service metrics are worse than none, because they actively push your team to do the wrong thing. Optimise for tickets-closed-per-day and your team learns to close fast and shallow, batch-closing things that were not resolved. Optimise for time-to-close and they learn to rush customers off the queue. Configure your reporting around outcomes the customer actually feels, or your scoreboard will quietly train bad service.

Make resolution the spine of your reporting, and define resolution honestly. A ticket is resolved when the customer's problem is solved, not when the ticket status changed to closed. Track reopen rate alongside close rate, because a high close rate with a high reopen rate is a team closing tickets that were not done. The pair tells the truth that either number alone hides.

Measure satisfaction at the moment it is real. A short post-resolution survey (a single rating, an optional comment) captures how the customer felt while it is fresh, and the comments are where your best configuration improvements come from. Configure the survey to fire automatically on resolution, keep it to one tap, and actually read the low scores, because a low score with a comment is a customer telling you exactly what to fix.

Watch the leading indicators, not only the lagging ones. First-response time, SLA attainment, and backlog age move before satisfaction and churn do, so they give you time to act. Configure a dashboard that puts the leading indicators next to the outcomes, and look at it on a rhythm, so a rising backlog or a slipping response time is caught while it is a trend and not yet a crisis.

INTERVIEW EWOUD: What service metric do you put on a client's dashboard first, and is there a vanity metric you have had to talk a client out of chasing?