In this article, Forrester’s VP principal analyst Maxie Schmidt discusses how to navigate the culture risks of metrics
It always begins with a bold promise: ‘Let’s be customer centric!’ A few sceptics wonder how it will work—given silos, broken processes, and legacy technology. But so it begins: The firm selects a benchmarkable CX metric, then cascades it into the organisation and sets performance targets. And to create accountability, it celebrates those who hit targets and ties performance to bonuses.
But fast-forward a few years and the firm hasn’t achieved its lofty goal. Instead, metrics-obsession abounds. To meet targets, frontline employees beg customers for high scores and leaders request colour-coded scales. Teams optimise functional metrics, creating conflict along customer journeys.
The CX team are measurement accountants and metrics are set in stone due to bonus systems. Worse, the organisation sinks into cynicism, aimlessness, and rigidity: it has depleted its culture energy – the fuel of any meaningful progress.
This isn’t fiction — Forrester data shows most customers don’t have better experiences, even as CX remains a priority. Score begging is rampant: 55% of UK and 68% of US consumers report it. And more than half of employees report low culture energy.
How weaponizing CX metrics drives cultural dysfunction
Two powerful forces drive this. First, a deep-seated belief that accountability is about using numeric targets to ‘motivate’ performance. People justify this mindset by citing business theorist and economist W. Edwards Deming’s famous quote “You can’t manage what you can’t measure”.
Only, he never said that – he warned instead: “it’s wrong to suppose you can’t manage what you can’t measure—a costly myth.” Add pressure to the mix, and it becomes toxic. As Deming’s contemporary Donald Wheeler said: “When people are pressured to meet a target value there are three ways they can proceed. They can work to improve the system, they can distort the system, or they can distort the data.”
Improving CX is already hard enough but if we use feedback to judge, we can’t use it to learn. Score chasing becomes a norm which creates a huge dissonance given the lofty ambition.
The second force is pseudo rigor — popular wisdom superseding measurement mastery. It manifests in habitual overreliance on standard KPIs and exhaustive, recurring reporting. Pseudo rigor exacerbates the dysfunction because it devalues our metrics, leaving everyone to chase scores they can’t quite influence or understand why they matter.
Break the cycle: adopt three healthy metrics habits
Adopt three habits to rewrite your story:
- 1: Design metrics — don’t default to proxies
Focus less on measuring the status quo across every touchpoint and more on measuring progress in key initiatives. To do that, work with leaders to clarify and prioritise vague goals. Instead of standard metrics which tell you how you stack up, design effective metrics that show you if you’re on track to meet your own goals. As performance measurement expert Stacey Barr says: “Meaningful measures come from a deliberate, evidence-based design process, not a brainstorm.”
- 2: Co-create CX levers and metrics — don’t cascade top-down
To avoid silos and conflicts, ask departments to translate company goals into goals for journeys or value streams. Then design metrics for each goal and highlight how you’ll handle goal conflicts. For each goal and metric, work with subject matter experts to co-create realistic CX improvement levers and indicator metrics which you test and refine over time.
- 3: Curate reports and enable — don’t pressure for scores
Exhaustive, recurring reporting lets everyone access data — effective reporting alerts to meaningful changes. Use methods like statistical process control charts to separate signal from noise. And ask leaders to start rituals that celebrate learning, not metrics. Most importantly, don’t tie CX metrics to bonuses. If that’s already the case — work to unwind it.
Get started to change your measurement culture
The endgame is a culture where people own CX progress — not performance on scores. Start by helping leaders and colleagues embrace healthy metric habits in a pilot project where you design better metrics and reporting as a proof of concept. Surface egregious consequences of the current approach to get buy-in for scaling the new approach.
Bonus tip: Don’t shut down score begging. It’s an early warning for you and your executive leaders that the organisation is slipping into metrics dysfunction.