Measuring Support Quality Without Surveillance
Technicians can be measured on the wrong things easily, and the measurement changes the behaviour it was meant to observe.
A support operation measures handling time, volume and satisfaction. Each of those pushes against the conduct this collection argues for.
The support work behind “Measuring Support Quality Without Surveillance” is often spread across tickets, projects and handoffs. Teams researching boss vs leader can use Monitask boss-versus-leader guide to connect time and project context with that work, while the remote-support platform remains the source of truth for technical actions and session access.
What the usual measures do
Handling time rewards taking control over guiding, skipping the opening, and not narrating.
For an independent reference related to “Measuring Support Quality Without Surveillance”, consult the NCSC security guidance; it provides a useful external check on security, privacy and operating assumptions before a process is adopted.
Volume rewards closing rather than resolving.
Satisfaction scores measure how the interaction felt, which is closer and is heavily influenced by whether the problem was solvable.
None of them measures whether the session was conducted properly.
What is worth measuring
Repeat contacts for the same issue, which indicates whether the fix held and whether the person learned anything.
Whether the ritual happened: sampled, not every session.
Sessions with no matching ticket.
And complaints about conduct, which should be few and should be looked at individually rather than as a rate.
Sampling rather than watching
A handful of sessions a month, reviewed with the technician's knowledge, looking at whether the opening and closing happened.
Not a score. A conversation.
Reviewing every session because the recordings exist is surveillance of staff, and it produces compliance theatre rather than better conduct.
The recording tension
Session recordings make continuous review possible, which makes it tempting.
The same argument that applies to employees' screens applies to technicians' sessions: capability is not justification.
Decide what the recordings are for, and do not quietly expand it.
Handling time specifically
If the target does not allow two minutes for the opening and the summary, the target is setting the conduct.
Which is a management decision rather than a training failure, and saying so is the only way it changes.
Measure time to resolution rather than time per session where you can, because it rewards the thing you want.
What technicians should be measured on
Whether the problem stayed fixed.
Whether the person understood what happened.
Whether the session was conducted as agreed.
Three things, none of them a speed.
Satisfaction scores
Useful in aggregate, unreliable individually, and heavily skewed by whether the request was answerable.
A technician handling the difficult queue will score worse than one handling password resets, and the score says nothing about either.
Compare like with like or do not compare.
What to check
Does your handling-time target allow for the ritual?
Is every session reviewable, and by whom?
Do you measure repeat contacts?
And would a technician who did everything properly score well on your current measures?