Difficulty obtaining written confirmations
Insufficient performance metrics focus
FA-08
Metric Antagonism
Systemic Anatomy
Systemic Description
Operational efficiency KPIs or short-term revenue targets directly conflict with customer experience goals, forcing staff and systems to optimize against the customer's interest.
Root Cause Type
Performance Incentive Misalignment
Why It Recurs
Business units are measured and rewarded on isolated operational metrics (AHT, conversion rate, ancillary attach) without counterbalancing quality or satisfaction metrics.
Governance Failure
Lack of balanced scorecard governance; revenue and cost leaders hold significantly more organizational power than CX leaders.
Scope Boundary
Does not explain pricing strategy decisions themselves, only the friction caused by execution tactics driven by conflicting performance metrics.
Structural Risk Profile
Decision Frequency
high
How often decisions of this type are made in the affected context.
Blast Radius
cross-domain
The scope and scale of impact when this friction manifests.
Reversibility
costly
The ease with which decisions affected by this friction can be undone.
Time to Impact
cumulative
The delay between decision and observable consequence.
Decision Fallout
Typical Decisions
- Incentivizing contact center speed (Average Handle Time) over resolution quality
- Setting aggressive ancillary sales targets for service staff without customer context awareness
Delayed Effects
- Transactional interactions that maximize short-term revenue while damaging Customer Lifetime Value
- Staff 'gaming' metrics at customer expense to meet targets
Early Warning Signals
- Customer churn increases despite operational metrics showing 'green'
- Complaints about pushy sales tactics or rushed, unhelpful service
Manifestations
Slow quote response times
Poor internal coordination between sales and operations
Difficulty providing specific feedback
Insufficient staff empowerment to act on feedback
High change fees
Complex legacy fare structures
Hidden fees not disclosed upfront
Inadequate staff training on billing procedures
Poor handling of split billing requests
Poor communication about fees and taxes
Confusing booking process for meeting rooms
Poor coordination between sales and operations
Upselling pressure during check-in
Inadequate staff training on guest service
Resolution Boundary
Decision Level
executive
This friction requires executive-level resolution because performance measurement systems and compensation structures are determined at senior leadership levels with authority over organizational incentives. Operational management cannot redesign the metrics by which they are evaluated, and cross-functional coordination cannot resolve incentive misalignment that originates in executive-level goal setting and reward allocation.
This friction cannot be resolved locally.
Type of Change Required
Cross-Functional Accountability Framework
- Individual department optimization against the customer occurs when accountability structures do not include shared responsibility for experience outcomes. The change required involves creating joint performance obligations that prevent one function from achieving targets by degrading another's domain.
Incentive Structure Realignment
- Metric antagonism continues when compensation and advancement are tied to metrics that conflict with customer interests. The friction persists until incentive systems are redesigned to penalize optimization of isolated metrics at the expense of holistic outcomes.
Performance Metric System Rebalancing
- This friction persists because business units are measured on isolated operational or revenue metrics without counterbalancing quality or experience metrics. The required change involves restructuring performance measurement to include experience outcomes with equivalent weight and consequence as efficiency or revenue targets.
What Does Not Work
- Including experience metrics as supplementary rather than primary performance indicators fails because it signals relative unimportance. Staff prioritize metrics that carry primary weight in evaluation and compensation decisions.
- Adding customer experience measurement that does not influence compensation or advancement fails because it creates visibility without accountability. Monitoring in the absence of consequence merely documents the friction without addressing its structural cause.
- Training staff to prioritize customer experience fails when their performance evaluation and compensation depend on conflicting metrics. Coaching cannot overcome structural incentive misalignment; staff rationally optimize for the metrics that determine their career outcomes.
AERIM
AERIM is the operating system designed to resolve the structural conditions described above. It addresses the governance, coordination, and decision architecture failures that the Friction Atlas documents. AERIM operates at the resolution boundary where local fixes fail and systemic change is required.