People Over Profits: The Business Case for Tracking Human-Centered Metrics

Businesses thrive when they invest in people, yet many prioritize short-term profits over long-term success. In the age of AI-driven decision-making, companies risk distancing themselves from the human impact of their choices.

I recently collaborated with Greg Parrott from The X-mentor an article titled “Experiential Metrics: Investing in People”, which originally published on his Substack on March 26, 2025. In this piece, we explored the importance of experiential metrics—measuring human experiences to drive human-centered strategies, sustainable business performance, and future growth.

Key Points from "Experiential Metrics: Investing in People”

People Drive Performance

Financial success is not solely the result of marketing, cost-cutting, and efficiency efforts. Satisfied customers are the real drivers of sustainable business performance. Companies that prioritize human experiences cultivate stronger brand loyalty, higher retention, and long-term profitability. Without investing in people, even the most financially optimized business strategies can fall short.

Limitations of Traditional Metrics

Conventional customer performance metrics, such as NPS (Net Promoter Score) and CSAT (Customer Satisfaction Score), primarily measure customer’s perception of the past rather than providing actionable, forward-looking insights. These lagging indicators fail to capture real-time behavioral and perceptual insights predictive of future customer loyalty and engagement.

These singular scores are attractive to business leaders who rely on numeric indicators for other business decision making. However, customer satisfaction cannot be measured with a single score determined through surveying. Relying too heavily on these flawed metrics creates blind spots, leaving businesses reactive rather than proactive in improving customer experiences.

The Power of Experiential Metrics

Experiential metrics go beyond problematic score-based metrics by capturing emotional, perceptual, and behavioral insights in real time. They reveal a new dimension of insight into how people feel, think, and act. Experiential data is more dynamic and contextual, providing organizations with a nuanced understanding of customer behavior and brand perception. By tracking real-time attitudinal, perceptual, and behavioral themes, companies can proactively refine their strategies before problems escalate.

The Business Case for Human-Centered Metrics

Companies that integrate experiential data into their performance tracking can help them to truly predict the impact of human experience on business performance, improve customer retention, and drive sustainable growth.

Unlike traditional financial or operational KPIs, human-centered metrics reveal the “why” behind user behavior, enabling businesses to align their strategies with real customer needs. Organizations that prioritize experience-driven insights are more likely to build resilient, customer-focused business models.

Corporate Dashboards Must Evolve

Many executive dashboards are heavily skewed toward financial and operational performance, often overlooking the human factors that directly influence those outcomes. To create a more holistic and effective decision-making framework, businesses must incorporate experiential data into their dashboards.

Forward-thinking leaders recognize that measuring how well an organization serves people—both internally and externally—is just as critical as tracking revenue and efficiency metrics.

Overcoming Resistance to Change

Integrating experiential metrics into an organization often meets resistance due to inertia, effort, emotional resistance, and reactance. Employees and executives accustomed to traditional performance measures may view experience-focused metrics as less concrete or more difficult to act upon. Successfully driving this shift requires a combination of clear communication, education, and demonstrating direct correlations between human-centered data and key business outcomes.

The Role of Design Leadership

UX and design leaders play a critical role in championing experiential metrics and in doing so can work toward securing their place in business decision-making. By translating human experience insights into tangible business impact, design leaders can influence executives to prioritize customer and employee experience as key drivers of success. Establishing experiential metrics as an essential business tool elevates the role of design within the organization and reinforces the strategic value of UX at the leadership level.

Conclusion

Investing in people is not just an ethical choice; it is a strategic imperative. By shifting from outdated proxy metrics to experiential metrics, businesses can unlock long-term growth, enhance customer loyalty, and gain a competitive advantage in an AI-driven world. The time to evolve corporate performance measurement is now.

Check out the original article, “Experiential Metrics: Investing in People.”