You are right that quality and performance are not mutually exclusive. I used to manage a number of help desks and was always beaten up if call performance dropped.

I introduced a customer satisfaction measurement scheme into the company (a big Telecommunications corporation). This was independently measured and when viewed alongside the call performance measures gave a true picture of the overall performance of the help desk.

The customer satisfaction measures were so revealing and led to many quality initiatives such as front and back office working, quality monitoring etc.

At the end of the day, customer satisfaction is far more important to a business than just how quickly the calls are answered. It’s all a question of balance.

Graham