In business, we love KPIs.
They give us numbers, and numbers feel like control.
But sometimes those numbers are just decoration.
The dashboard glows green.
The report looks clean.
The root problem stays unseen.
The Origin
This reflection started with two conversations.
One with a medium-sized law firm.
Their MSP treats them well. The relationship is solid.
But the same problems keep coming back.
Root causes remain untouched.
The metrics say “resolved.”
Reality says “recycled.”
The other was with a car dealership.
Password resets cost $50 per request.
Employees don’t forget passwords anymore.
They write them down.
On sticky notes.
Taped to their monitors.
Both stories stuck with me.
Not because the people were careless.
But because the systems were.
The Shift
Somewhere along the way, we stopped asking:
What are we trying to fix?
And we started asking:
What are we trying to hit?
The metric became the mission.
The number became the narrative.
The goal became the graph.
The Symptoms
We celebrate ticket closures, not root-cause resolution.
We chase engagement, not understanding.
We optimize for speed, not quality.
We reward activity, not impact.
We track volume, not value.
Everyone’s doing their job.
No one’s solving the problem.
When KPIs Replace Conversation
Call centers today are a perfect example of what happens when goals drift away from reality.
Most centers don’t optimize for helping people.
They optimize for reporting success.
It’s not that leaders don’t care.
It’s that KPIs make it easier to manage from a distance.
And easier to justify to their own managers.
But here’s the real tension.
People rarely describe their issues cleanly.
They don’t speak in categories.
They don’t know the expected steps.
They just know something isn’t working.
And when a human struggles to explain, the system assumes the person is the bottleneck.
So companies chase faster calls.
AI systems chase cleaner signals.
And both ignore the inconvenient truth.
Solving real problems requires messy conversations.
But messiness doesn’t look good on a dashboard.
Instead of adapting the system, we measure the person.
Instead of listening harder, we automate louder.
Instead of understanding the confusion, we penalize the call time.
AI is replacing call center tiers not because it’s better at understanding.
But because it’s better at looking good on paper.
Meanwhile the customer walks away unresolved, unheard, and somehow responsible for not explaining their issue correctly.
The KPI improves.
The experience declines.
The illusion grows.
The Culture
People aren’t lazy.
They’re responding to incentives.
Password resets cost $50.
So passwords get taped to monitors.
Call times are tracked.
So agents rush through empathy.
Leads are counted.
So marketing floods the funnel with noise.
Time-to-hire is praised.
So HR skips the hard questions.
Production is measured.
So defects are buried.
Everyone optimizes for the metric.
No one optimizes for the mission.
The Illusion Across Business
🛒 Sales
Deals closed doesn’t mean they stay.
Pipeline volume doesn’t mean it’s real.
Activity logs doesn’t mean it’s working.
📣 Marketing
Impressions doesn’t mean impact.
Likes doesn’t mean loyalty.
Engagement doesn’t mean conversion.
🧑💼 HR
Time to hire doesn’t mean the right hire.
Offer acceptance doesn’t mean retention.
Internal mobility doesn’t mean growth.
📦 Customer Service
Average handle time doesn’t mean resolution.
First-call resolution doesn’t mean satisfaction.
Ticket count doesn’t mean care.
🏭 Operations
Units produced doesn’t mean usable.
Downtime reduced doesn’t mean stability.
Defect rate doesn’t mean honesty.
🧾 Finance
Cost savings doesn’t mean value.
Budget variance doesn’t mean alignment.
Invoice speed doesn’t mean clarity.
The Trap
KPIs can be
Cosmetic
Convenient
Controlling
They reward what’s easy to count.
They ignore what’s hard to fix.
They punish what’s human.
The Question
Because if the number looks good but reality doesn’t
It’s not a KPI
It’s a blindfold.
Insights, strategy, and forward-thinking IT solutions.
Visit https://www.vyings.com to learn more.
