23 March 2013 - metrics 2

You’re a customer support representative, and the customer just asked you a hard question. Your choices:

1. Good question. You don’t know. The customer will be unhappy.
2. Great question. Find the answer, eventually. The customer will be annoyed that it took so long and your measured productivity will tank so your boss won’t like you.
3. Dumb question. Make up an answer. The customer will by happy at first and your boss’s metrics will say that you’re doing great. The customer’s later anger will never be measured.

Solution: Buy no product that you may someday have a question about.