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In the call center, speed is often lauded as virtue when it comes to customer transactions. Call center managers track average handle time, wrap-up time, speed-to-answer, calls per hour and more. While these metrics are certainly important to keep track of, they’re not the be-all and end-all they’re often portrayed to be.

Metrics are often track for the call center’s benefit. Faster transactions mean more customers are serviced, and there is more potential for revenue, and agents are more productive. But there’s a problem with tracking speed only: if customers are being rushed off the phone before their transactions are complete and their questions are answered, then quality takes a nosedive. Most contact centers would benefit from adjusting their metrics to be more customer-centric rather than call center-centric.

In a recent blog post, customer service software solutions provider TeamSupport offers a hypothetical:

“Let’s say your customer contacts you about a problem with their software,” wrote the blogger. “They downloaded it, it worked for a while, but now the computer just seems to hate it for some reason. They can’t get to the main menu and there’s a crazy buzzing sound coming from the speakers. They contact you to figure out the problem. Now, you’ve encountered this before, so you figure you can blast them through the process and move on to help somebody else. You speed through the process and they hesitantly leave the phone call as you go onto the next ticket.”

Since the customer never really grasped what was done to solve the problem, it crops up again, and the customer is still at a loss how to solve it. What does this customer do? He calls back, and this time, he’s irritated at having to make the second phone call. Despite the speed of the first transaction, you’ve now doubled the time you had to spend with this customer, and lost a significant portion of that customer’s goodwill and loyalty. So what have you gained? The answer is, “Not very much.”

Customer service software can go a long way toward helping agents and help desk personnel follow the right procedures, find the right resources and customize the support session for each customer. But it’s also important that companies allow agents to slow down a bit when it’s required.

For this reason, many successful contact centers tend to track quality-based metrics such as first-call resolution rather than quantity-based metrics such as average handle time. While speed metrics may yield short-term benefits, they will be benefits for the call center or help desk only, and not customers. By emphasizing quality, companies can boost their benefits in the long term.