In the mid-2000s, a key metric for customer service reps at Dell Computers was “handle time,” or the amount of time they would spend on the phone with a customer. The concept was it would encourage customer service reps to handle problems quickly. What happened, though, was that it incentivized customer service reps to transfer customers with complex problems to someone else. What was happening was that their personal “handle time” was low, and they graded out well, but the actual amount of time customers spent on the phone went up, as customers wasted hours getting transferred from person to …Read more »