My job is to provide customer service. I chose to do it in IT Services. I got here as a very young employee whose boss plopped a giant computer manual on my desk and I didn’t run away.

I have an entire career built around figuring things out. And you don’t do that without a healthy dose of curiosity. It’s important to surround yourself with a diverse group of people with a variety of skills. But on my teams, they must have two specific and non-negotiable traits: integrity and curiosity.

Curiosity is not simply a personality trait in customer service. It is an operational discipline. When those characteristics are woven together with deep expertise, you have an employee with superpowers. Curiosity-as-a-Service is our way of embedding root cause thinking into every ticket.

My team’s motto is “Fix One Thing Permanently Every Day.” First Call Resolution (FCR) and short Average Handle Times (AHT) will make charts green. Tickets are closed today. But Curiosity-as-a-Service will solve problems for months.

The Five Whys technique originated with Sakichi Toyoda and became foundational in the Toyota Production System. When presented with a problem, ask “Why” five times to get to the root of the problem. By finding the root of the problem, you may find a permanent solution.

Here’s a recent example from my work: A critical user was suddenly unable to access a shared network drive. The technician quickly restored access by resetting the user’s credentials and reconnecting the drive. Work resumed, and the issue was considered resolved. Call time was short and FCR complete.

The fix worked. So, when it happened again, we knew exactly how to resolve it. We can close tickets, increase FCR and improve call times. But the user calls back because it happens again.

This approach costs technician time, interrupts the user’s work repeatedly and never addresses why the problem kept returning. In fact, we may have escalated this to another team without digging in, so we increase friction rather than solve problems.

But what happens when we take time to apply Five Whys instead?

Problem:
A user repeatedly lost access to a critical network drive.

Why?
Wrong password attempts.

Why?
A mobile device keeps retrying old credentials.

Why?
The password was changed but not updated on that device.

Why?
The device wasn’t included in the password reset instructions.

Why?
Our documentation doesn’t mention checking mobile sync devices. (Or worse: “We don’t support BYOD because they are “Shadow IT.”)

Solve the problem, not the symptom.

When to trigger five whys curiosity

Every ticket won’t need this. The curious agent’s curiosity should kick in when:

• Repeat Issues
• Multiple users are impacted
• We escalated it before
• It feels like a workaround
• The same KB article is reused constantly

Measure improvements

Document systemic fixes that result in measurable ticket reduction.

• Example:
  • Eliminated 42 recurring password lockouts
  • Eliminated 18 VPN reauthentication tickets
  • Report monthly.

Evolve KPIs to measure more than speed

Measure percentage of tickets tied to previously resolved issues within 30 days.

• Formula:
  Repeat Tickets ÷ Total Tickets × 100
• Goal:
  Reduce this monthly by 5–10%.

Strengthen knowledge articles

• Add a Root Cause section
• Add a Prevention field
• Add sample questions that may lead to a Five Whys resolution
• Measure articles updated after repeat events

Lead like this is a cultural shift

• Introduce metrics incrementally
• Communicate, Communicate, Communicate
• Know the goals
• Celebrate the first measurable impact

Unfortunately, many organizations will resist this type of shift. Leadership fears a slowdown. Agents fear additional work. Everyone fears they will be penalized due to the impact on metrics. Root cause work is invisible at first, but will raise customer satisfaction exponentially when it becomes a repeatable process.

Speed resolves today’s tickets. Curiosity-as-a-Service Resolves tomorrow’s tickets at scale. Be brave enough to measure both.