Are Your Employees Gaming Your Customer Service Metrics?

You arrive at headquarters, sit down in your workspace, and log into your computer. After checking your email, you open up your reports dashboard and begin looking at your customer service metrics.

You’re pleased. They’re looking good, perhaps trending in the right directions. You disseminate the reports to the proper people, secure in the knowledge that your organization is truly customer-focused.

What Do Your Metrics Really Tell You?

If you can support that data with results from other sources such as secret shoppers, customer communications, and social media, then perhaps you’re right. But if you rely solely upon reports (length of calls, online surveys, help ticket closure rates, etc.) take that data with a grain of salt about the size of a baseball.

Employees know how to game the system. For example:

• When I pick up my merchandise at a major department store’s package pickup department, the flat screen shows my merchandise delivered a good five minutes before it’s actually in my hands.
• When I returned a rental car and complained about the tobacco smell to the representative, I later realized I never received a customer service satisfaction survey to complete. Yet on prior visits, when I had no complaints, I received one (and gave them high marks).
• Last week I bought a new car. The salesman accepted my final offer if I agreed to give him 100 percent on the telephone survey I would receive. He told me this was at his boss’s request.

You can’t stop employees from gaming the system. You can, however, verify the data by using multiple sources to get a more accurate picture.

As Ronald Reagan said, “Trust, but verify.”

Regards,

Glenn

I don’t game the system on Twitter, but I do offer occasional puns, wine recommendations, views on customer service, CRM, and sports. I’m @txglennross.