Customer service departments—a name I abhor, but that’s for another post—need to stop measuring. Putting rules—they’re actually limits—around call times and setting goals for the number of tickets handled does not help customers, it just turns them into faceless numbers.

Customers are not problems, they are people with problems. Making them into a number on a spreadsheet takes away their humanity. And shunting them through a scripted process minimizes connection and compassion.

When a customer calls, what’s the goal? Solutions, not needing to call back, no hassles during or after the solving, and no additional cost. And a little empathy wouldn’t hurt either. 

All the measuring that gets done only turns an interaction into a transaction. Instead of building a relationship, it becomes a one-night stand.

Stop measuring, or, if you must, measure happiness or the number of relationships built/strengthened. Meaningful work does not fit neatly on spreadsheets, employees are not robots, and customers are not just a means to an end. So, it would be best to stop trying to fit that square peg into the round hole of human business. 

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