What I've learned
Tickets move, but ownership is often still unclear. Customers get updates that don't answer the question they actually asked. Teams can see what's broken, but the evidence is scattered across systems no one reads together.
Common mistakes
Measuring activity instead of experience — ticket volume, response time, resolution time — without ever asking whether the customer felt looked after. Volume and speed can both look healthy while trust quietly erodes.
Practical approaches
Combine how people feel with how much time they believe they lost, then look at the reasons behind that experience: escalation patterns, handover quality, knowledge gaps, and where communication breaks down. A better service desk is easier for customers to trust and easier for teams to run — usually at the same time.