@SteveBelgraver I’ve worked for a client contact center with a strict SLA and it’s also their KPI. The problem is, people only care about what affect their pay check and bonus, they will close the ticket as fast as they can. But when we started to put CSAT into their KPI, they started ‘Gaming the score’ by asking customer to give them 5 star at the survey. 
So yeah, XLAs is somewhat the future but the hardthings is to keep the frontline play by the rule. Their position are not high enough to give a thing about “Customer Centricity”

This! This is so on point. We are in an era of defining the undefinable. 

There is so much emphasis in so many areas on success metrics and measuring success or setting measurable success goals, but how do you measure an experience? 

There is always going to be a push and pull effect between business leaders who are responsible for outcomes and the intangible “feeling” of XM.

For example, if I walk out of a business feeling great about the experience I had, I may not have an immediate need to go back and spend more with that business. That doesn’t mean I didn’t have a great CX moment; but many business leaders would count that as a failed experience because it did not lead to more revenue for them that quarter or year, even.

I think there are some healthy measures to be tracked but I also think especially in B2B leaders need to get used to the intangibles and the implied or correlated business impacts of XM that don’t fit nicely into the cells of a spreadsheet.

Great post @SteveBelgraver love it! We need more thought provoking opportunities to engage like this.

Spot on @Nam Nguyen! KPIs should be an integral part of a data-based effort to continuously learn, adapt and improve. They should neither be carrots to reward employees who hit targets nor become sticks to punish employees who fail to deliver. KPIs should be part of a larger (XLA ) framework that maximises stakeholder (read: not only shareholder) value. 

The British economist Charles Goodhart summarised this nicely which since has become known as Goodhart's law which states that "When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure"

A lot is measurable and with the unstoppable progress of science and technology we are able to measure even more each day. In a sense we’ve been measuring ourselves since times antiquity. And although progress is enabling us to continually improve our ability to measure things, I do believe there are aspects of the human experience that remain immeasurable. 

It may help to change perspectives and turn the question around. CSAT, KPIs, XM and yes XLAs are ultimately a mere means to an end. Your point on business leaders needing to be on point is quite apt. Maybe the following analogy works with business leaders being the captains on a ship. They’re responsible for setting the course to reach the destination with the crew being responsible for trimming the sails and keeping everything in working order during the journey. Managing the experiences and expectations with a robust framework that enables organisations to reach their objectives can be deemed sufficient. Maybe not perfect but good enough. 

@SteveBelgraver 

For XLAs to really work, I don’t think it should all be about agreements or rules. What we need is a shift in culture where frontline employees feel empowered and trusted to focus on genuinely helping the customer—and actually get recognized/rewarded for it. Rules are just there to guide behavior, but the real magic happens when employees go beyond the script.

In a lot of the customer experience books I’ve read, the best examples come from team or individual who bypassed the usual processes and rules to help customers like they would a close friend.
This is one of them:

“During a business trip, a man received a call from his wife with tragic news: their grandson had been in an accident and can not make it. He only had a few hours to see his grandson one last time. The man immediately packed his things to get to him. His wife also called Airlines to explain the situation, and they arranged for him to take the earliest possible flight.

Unfortunately, there was traffic on the way to the airport, and he arrived at the gate 12 minutes after the plane was supposed to take off. Heartbroken, he sat down and began to cry.

Suddenly, a pilot approached him and asked, "Are you Mark?" The man nodded, and the pilot continued, “I’m still here. The plane can’t leave without me, and I’m not going anywhere until you’re on board. Come with me.”

It was an unbelievable experience! The pilot delayed the flight by 12 minutes to ensure this special customer could make it.

In the airline industry, breaking protocol like that could be a serious offense, and the pilot could have been disciplined or even fired. However, instead of being fired, he was chosen to join the company’s culture committee.”

That’s what genuine customer-centric action looks like.

@SteveBelgraver -- your post is perfect for our new XM Thought Leadership category, so I moved it over here to kick things off! You have set the bar high with this post