The first question senior leadership usually asks when looking at a support dashboard is whether ticket volume is up or down. If it's up, the instinct is to fix something. If it's down, the instinct is to celebrate.

Neither reaction is quite right. Ticket volume is a number without a story, and if you know anything about data analysis, it’s that the story matters more than the number.

Across…

Volume tells you something happened. It can't tell you what to do about it until you know why. The same number can mean a critical bug or a fast-growing customer base.