Borrowed Metrics
What if the simplest path to better performance, retention, and client satisfaction is to borrow the client’s KPIs and treat them as part of your own KPIs? I’m not saying to do this to make the client happy. I’m saying it because it makes the work more meaningful and honest.
The reason is simple: value is never created in isolation. When your internal KPIs ignore your client’s success metrics, it’s quite easy to end up optimizing a machine that rewards internal movement instead of client value.
Yeah, teams tend to obsess over the metrics they can control. But the moment teams center only on internal metrics, they unintentionally sever the connective tissue between what they deliver and what the client actually experiences. As a common result, misalignment becomes the predictable output of a perfectly functioning internal system.
When Sales, Marketing, Product, and Support (all teams that touch the client experience) operate from your client’s scoreboard, accountability shifts from “Did we hit our number?” to “Did we help them hit theirs?” The work becomes relational instead of transactional. In a very real way, the work becomes more dignified.
So, with this thinking, which of your teams’ current KPIs would change tomorrow if they were required to match your client’s definition of success?
