More on Metrics.

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I realized, as I worked on this post, about Comcast, I have a lot to say about metrics. A whole lot. It's not an easy subject, and the corporate world loves metrics. Every middle manager in the country becomes flush at the sight of a report detailing the After Call Percent, the Labor Percent, and the time in queue. They are positively froth at the notion.

Now, I am going to upset a lot of people. Maybe I won't come off as an expert. I have a lot of experience with metrics. And before you say that studies show that metrics are the best performance measures we have, remember that whenever you say "best" you have to ask, for whom.

Metrics, in a lot of ways, are a justification. No company likes it's technical support division. This love-child of rapidly growing tech, coupled with furtive and error-prone tech, is a sinkhole for company money. I'd bet that half of R&D is basically just "make it less error prone."  It's certainly cheaper.

But as technology increased, Tech Support became the second sales associate. We were the soft sell. "Hey, thanks for buying out product. All technology, even that car, has issues. We know that it's inconvenient when it doesn't work, let's get it working right for you."

The flip side - it's a sinkhole for companies to offer free support. They'd charge but most customers suffer a disconnect - they see a technician fiddle some buttons and then the computer works. The technological "wizardry" is largely subtle. When you take your car in for  a repaire, they lift it up on blocks, pull out parts. It looks like work. It's easy to understand as actual skill.  When a technician rapidly scrolls through text, presses a few buttons, reboots your computer, there doesn't seem to be any substance.

So the company wants a profit on a department and the customer doesn't want to pay for what looks like crystal waving hoodoo. But tech support needs to exist.


So Technical support managers use metrics because to the executives, who care only for the bottom line and who listen only to bean-counters, need, desperately need, to know why this red mark exists in the the ledger of their exchequer. They see this entire department that has no income and they can seem to justify it.

I don't understand why. They happily understand exchange of money for goods, at least - they ought. Unless, they don't. When they take their ski trips, do they not pay people for food? For shelter? Why do they think the $30 dollar bottle of hair product is worth it? I mean, their computers need fixing too. I get frustrated that I have to buy cleaning supplies, but after living in some lichen-coated ogre-caves in my past, I wouldn't be caught dead without at least a bottle of bleach. .

Metrics, in this case, justify something that ought need no justification. Tech Support is the second customer service. Once the item has been sold, follow-up falls, mostly, on service. If service is handcuffed to metrics, or poorly staffed, or poorly paid, you lose your ability to create meaningful and important customer experience. Yes, you will have a trickle of naive and bright-eyed techs who will begin the job with open-hearts. But your system will turn them into cowering, mumbling misanthropes in six months. And then, you'll need a retention team.

My point is exactly this: Metrics should never cost the customer experience. The customer experience needs to be managed. If you manage the customer they will have a bad experience.

Truth is, metrics are not all bad. On the contrary, someone I admire, Jon Taffer, uses a type of metric called analytics. He touts the "science of the bar business." He uses these metrics to aid the bar in increasing profit. But bars make money by improving and lengthening the positive customer experience. It's may sometimes come off as if you your chairs are 5 cm higher then profits increase 10%, but only because on TV, they edit and use shorthand. Bars make money on happy, well-served, pleasantly-buzzed-and-entertained customers. If a metric increases short-term profit for a bar at the cost of long term customers - then it isn't used.

Growth under the current system that puts profit first will fall. Profit is important, despite my difficulty understanding work, I can understand profit.

Good service, a good product, and good follow-up, is not a detriment to service. You don't make profit and then, as an afterthought, offer a good experience, or an experience.  You don't begrudgingly slough off to work, petulant and angry like a spoiled child, (or yours truly). You don't try to mitigate it as a "unfortunate and unintended consequence."

You offer a service and a good experience, and, in trade, you are provided other services or goods, or the shorthand, money.

Imagine! Imagine the bar that, as a a consequence, has nice lighting and a dance floor. "What do you mean, we have to have good liquor and clean bars? I just want to sell drinks!" or  a Pizza place? "Quality ingredients? Psh! Just sell them them ground up cardstock!*" How many people would be impressed by an executive with unwashed hair and a ratty suit? 

And, as  customers go elsewhere (assuming they can - Telecoms have the system locked up). You are left with needing "Retention specialists", basically glorified beggars and strong-arm experts who's sole purpose is to keep your unhappy customers on the hook.  You are no better than some back alley clip joint.

If you need metrics to justify your position, you haven't adequately managed your value. And if you need, god help you, an extortionist in "retention." then you aren't providing a service worth retaining.



* I am talking to you Pizza Hut.  Little Caesar's tastes better. And it's cheaper. You should be ashamed. 

** It's just me, but I put on a spiffy bowler and a monocle.