I used to work for a large UK telecoms company. When our department (technical support) was formed we were told that time targets were not important and to try to resolve issues on first call. We won every customer service industry awards for the first two years. The management changed and more and more targets were Introduced and lo and behold the awards stopped. The biggest problem with these kind of metrics is that without seeing the bigger picture, those who most often hit these targets are promoted in the organisation, thus perpetuating the number centric mindset. I once lost my bonus for a month because on one call I only used the customer's name twice.