Manager orders support staff to close every customer complaint before leaving the day, causing a flood of duplicate cases in the system: 'The rule was quietly reversed'

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Cata Holmes • Writer
Jul 13, 2026 7:15 PM EDT

What could go wrong when managers care more about metrics than real solutions?

I've read and heard multiple stories of managers trying to solve a problem, only to cause a much bigger one. In this case, they thought that by having each customer support employee close the unsolved tickets by EOD, the numbers would improve. Instead, they caused the whole system to collapse since multiple cases were opened, even three or four new ones per client. Since this made everything go wrong, they backtracked and dissolved the request.

I expect managers to understand better than anyone the numbers and metrics of a company, so I really get confused when they are the ones who ask employees to follow a mandatory task that ruins the whole system. As we can all imagine, these types of decisions end up being erased…

Anyways, sometimes trying new things is worth the attempt. But if they were going to change the whole procedure, they should've expected the numbers they ended up having: multiple new cases a day, and around three or four per client. That's a lot… even for customer service.

The part that I found to be the funniest was the one when nobody was shocked when the numbers exploded. The support agents knew exactly what would happen because they are the ones dealing with customers daily. If a problem depends on another department, closing the case doesn't really make the case disappear. It just creates more work later when the same customer calls the next day and demands an update.

It got to me when they didn't complain about the manager's rule. They simply followed the instructions exactly as they were given. That's usually when flawed policies reveal themselves the fastest. A dashboard might look cleaner for a few days, but reality eventually catches up. That's when they learned that a closed case and a solved one are not the same, and that it's better to have both of them even though the numbers are worse.

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  • 01
    Customer service agents working at desktop computers in a modern office environment while handling support inquiries.
    via Unsplash+ (via Getty Images)

    Customer service agents working at desktop computers in a modern office environment while handling support inquiries.

    Image shown for illustrative purposes only.

  • 02
    I used to work customer support for a small software company. We were measured almost entirely on how many tickets we closed each day. Customer satisfaction and actually solving the issue were supposedly important too, but the numbers on the dashboard always seemed to matter more.
    via Wise_Attorney4757
  • 03
    One Monday, management announced a new rule.
    via Wise_Attorney4757
  • 04
    No ticket was allowed to stay open overnight unless a supervisor approved it. They said seeing. old tickets on the board "looked bad" during executive meetings.
    via Wise_Attorney4757
  • 05
    I asked what we should do with the complicated issues that required the development team. Sometimes we'd be waiting two or three days for an answer.
    via Wise_Attorney4757
  • 06
    The response was, "Close the ticket. If the customer still needs help, they can open a new one."
    via Wise_Attorney4757
  • 07
    I confirmed that was the expectation, and my manager said yes.
    via Wise_Attorney4757
  • 08
    So that's exactly what I did.
    via Wise_Attorney4757
  • 09
    Every issue that depended on another team got a polite message explaining that the current request was being closed and that they should contact us again if they still needed assistance after the developers reviewed the problem.
    via Wise_Attorney4757
  • 10
    By the end of the week, my numbers looked fantastic. I had the highest ticket closure rate on the team, and the dashboard had almost no old tickets left.
    via Wise_Attorney4757
  • 11
    Financial spreadsheet displaying monthly expenses, budget forecasts, and account balances with a highlighted negative balance.
    via Unsplash+ (via Mika Baumeister)

    Financial spreadsheet displaying monthly expenses, budget forecasts, and account balances with a highlighted negative balance.

    Image used for illustrative purposes only.

  • 12
    The following week, support volume suddenly exploded.
    via Wise_Attorney4757
  • 13
    Customers were opening second, third, and sometimes fourth tickets for the exact same issue because each previous one had been closed before anyone could actually fix it.
    via Wise_Attorney4757
  • 14
    Reporting became useless because one problem now appeared as multiple unrelated cases. The developers were confused because they kept getting duplicate reports from different ticket numbers.
    via Wise_Attorney4757
  • 15
    Management called a meeting to figure out why ticket volume had nearly doubled.
    via Wise_Attorney4757
  • 16
    I reminded them that I had simply followed the new policy exactly as instructed.
    via Wise_Attorney4757
  • 17
    After a rather awkward silence, the rule was quietly changed. Tickets waiting on another. department could stay open again, provided we added an internal note explaining why.
    via Wise_Attorney4757
  • 18
    My ticket closure rate dropped back to normal. Strangely enough, so did the number of support tickets.
    via Wise_Attorney4757
  • 19
    Customer support representatives wearing headsets while assisting clients and managing service requests at their workstations.
    via Unsplash+ (via Getty Images)

    Customer support representatives wearing headsets while assisting clients and managing service requests at their workstations.

    Subjects are models.

  • In the comments, Redditors found the story very relatable since, for them, is common to have managers make decisions without involving themselves in the actual workflow. Had they done that, they could have avoided flooding the system with duplicate cases.

  • 20
    Punished Snake I feel like this story is missing the part where the higher ups are telling you "why did you do that. how idiotic" and then blame everything on you
    via Wise_Attorney4757
  • 21
    RexCanisFL Al... or stupid configuration of the ticket system. Moving the tickets to a development queue would take them out of Support's queue so it would look exactly the same as if they're all closed... but Dev would still see the tickets.
    via Wise_Attorney4757
  • 22
    booyah9898 Uhhh, add a new status called "Open - Dev Hold" or similar
    via Wise_Attorney4757
  • 23
    MalkavianReddit People making decisions for people who have never done the work never understand the process. They are shoved into management positions in departments that they don't know and expect to make a name for themselves and not listening to the people actually doing the work.
    via Wise_Attorney4757
  • 24
    nowhereiswater My work is similar. It doesn't matter how it's shipped as long as there's a label on it and we got it out for delivery. Numbers are more important than packaging, we let our returns depart suffer.
    via Wise_Attorney4757

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