Unf*cking Your CX #88 - “The Big Problem: Contact Centers Were Built to Manage, Not Perform.” (Part I/III)
Zack Hamilton
Author, Creator of the Experience Performance System™ | Host, Unf*cking Your CX Podcast
I got a message last week that stopped me cold.
“I’m trying to advocate for the customer and the long-term health of the business, but I keep getting told CX doesn’t impact the P&L. I’ve got the data. I’ve got the receipts. And still gaslighting, resistance, and dismissal. Twenty years of experience, reduced to ‘just do it cheap.’”
That one hit hard. Because it’s not rare. It’s everywhere.
It’s the quiet exhaustion of people who still believe in what customer experience was supposed to be the ones who stay up late pulling data, chasing answers, trying to prove the unprovable to leaders who’ve already stopped listening.
You can feel the weight in those words: belief battling burnout.
And here’s the truth no one wants to say out loud - belief alone can’t fix a system that was never built to perform.
Somewhere along the way, the contact center (the front line of your customer’s truth) got demoted to a cost line. We turned a living, breathing channel of insight into a controlled environment of compliance. Stopwatches instead of strategy. Scripts instead of sense. We called it “service,” but what we really built was a factory.
We measured people by seconds instead of outcomes. We rewarded speed instead of ownership. We celebrated low handle time instead of high trust.
And we wonder why customers don’t stay loyal.
Let’s be clear: this isn’t a people problem. It’s a system problem. You can hire all the empathy in the world, but if the system’s built to manage instead of perform, it will choke the life out of every good intention you’ve got.
Executives keep saying “CX doesn’t drive the P&L” and they’re right. Not the way most companies are running it.
Because the way we measure CX is fundamentally broken. We’re tracking the aftermath of friction instead of eliminating the root of it. We’re managing sentiment when we should be managing performance. We’re counting calls instead of calculating trust.
So no, this CC Leader isn’t crazy. She’s awake. She’s realizing what so many of us have - that the contact center was never designed to reward customer outcomes. It was built to control cost.
And when your system is designed for control, don’t be surprised when it kills creativity, autonomy, and impact along the way.
That’s the shift this movement is about. Not more dashboards. Not more empathy campaigns. A complete rewiring from managing service to performing experience.
Because belief is powerful. But belief backed by system design? That’s unstoppable.
THE ROOT SYSTEM FAILURE - MANAGING VS. PERFORMING
Let’s call it what it is.
The contact center was never built to perform. It was built to manage.
And the difference between the two isn’t semantics, it’s survival.
Managing looks like control. Performing looks like impact.
For decades, we built service systems around one obsession: efficiency. “Do more with less.” “Reduce handle time.” “Improve adherence.”
Translation: Do it faster. Cheaper. Quieter.
We built an entire management religion around volume and velocity, not value. We measured how fast agents could end conversations, not how effectively they could change behavior. We trained them to follow scripts instead of own resolutions. We taught them that silence was safety - that the best service is the one nobody notices.
That’s not experience management. That’s experience containment.
When you measure to manage, you optimize for control. When you measure to perform, you optimize for impact.
The first builds compliance. The second builds confidence.
And confidence (not control) is what drives revenue, retention, and loyalty.
Let’s break it down.
Here’s how most companies still measure success inside their contact centers:
The Hard Truth:
Every “manage” metric is about controlling people. Every “perform” metric is about empowering outcomes.
But most organizations are addicted to control because control feels safe. You can put it in a dashboard. You can report it in a meeting. You can justify your existence with it.
But you can’t grow with it. You can’t innovate with it. And you sure as hell can’t build loyalty with it.
We love to say “CX is everyone’s job.” But that’s not true. In most companies, CX is everyone’s problem and no one’s performance metric.
So we keep optimizing for metrics that make the spreadsheet look good while the experience bleeds out quietly underneath.
And none of it moves the business forward.
The Experience Performance System flips that script.
It doesn’t ask, “How many calls did we take?” It asks, “How many shouldn’t have happened?”
It doesn’t ask, “Did the agent follow the process?” It asks, “Did the customer’s behavior change after the interaction?”
It doesn’t track time to close. It tracks time to trust.
That’s the shift. From counting what’s convenient → to measuring what matters. From managing service → to performing experience.
Because customers don’t remember how fast you picked up. They remember whether they left that interaction feeling like they mattered or like they were managed.
And that’s the inflection point. You can’t manage your way to performance. Not anymore.
THE TWO SIDES OF PERFORMANCE
Every customer contact has two stories. The one that led to the call and the one that followed it.
Most leaders only measure the middle. They obsess over the interaction itself (handle time, tone, QA, sentiment) but never stop to ask two essential questions:
Those two questions define whether your contact center is managing service or performing experience.
Side One: The Experience Breakdown (What led to the call?)
Every inbound contact is a symptom. A signal that something upstream failed -> in your digital experience, your fulfillment flow, your policy clarity, or your communication loop.
Customers don’t wake up hoping to talk to your contact center. They call because something broke. Something didn’t make sense. Something you could’ve (and should’ve) prevented.
That’s where performance starts: not in how fast you handle it, but in how well you prevent it.
Here’s how you reframe that thinking using the first EPS Madlib:
Every [ frequency ], at least [ reach ] of our customers contact us caused by experience [ pain point tied to CX, e.g., delivery delays, inconsistent support, poor communication ], resulting in [ volume/cost of impact - X% of repeat contacts, $Y handling cost, Z lost conversions ], signaling a gap in [ process/system layer ].
If we eliminate this friction, we can reduce [ avoidable contact volume % ], improving [ key lever: cost efficiency, retention, or repeat purchase rate ].
Example:
Every week, at least 3,650 of our customers contact us caused by their online return labels not working, resulting in 14% repeat contacts and $1.2M in avoidable handling costs, signaling a failure in our digital fulfillment process.
If we eliminate this friction, we can reduce contact volume by 8% and protect $3.5M in retention revenue.
Player Tip:
Every “why did they call?” should have a preventable root cause that lives outside the contact center. If you’re not mapping those causes, you’re not leading CX, you’re managing damage control.
Side Two: The Performance Behavior (What happened after the call?)
Here’s the side nobody measures and the one that separates performers from managers.
Because performance isn’t about the resolution. It’s about the behavior change that follows.
Did the customer repurchase? Did they renew? Did they refer? Or did they quietly walk away?
If you can’t answer that, you’re not managing experience; you’re closing tickets.
Here’s how you report behavior change performance leveraging this EPS Madlib:
Following the interaction, the customer [did/didn’t] complete [desired behavior - repeat purchase, renewal, referral, engagement], indicating a [positive/negative] behavior shift.This suggests our resolution approach [reinforced trust / increased effort / failed to solve the cause], impacting [metric: repeat purchase rate, churn probability, lifetime value].
To improve, we should measure [behavioral signal: time-to-next-purchase, repurchase rate, retention after resolution] instead of [traditional CX metric: handle time, QA score, CSAT].
Example:
Following the interaction, 72% of customers who called about delayed shipments didn’t reorder within 30 days. That tells us we fixed the ticket but not the trust. Resulting in a $2.7M decline in trailing 30-day repeat purchase revenue.
Measuring time-to-next-purchase will show whether our resolutions are truly recovering loyalty.”
Player Tip:
Every contact is a behavioral intervention. Measure what changed not what closed.
Together, They Form the Contact Center Equation
When you put these two sides together, something powerful happens. You stop treating customer service as the cost of doing business and start running it as a system for protecting growth.
The contact center becomes more than a reaction hub. It becomes your most valuable feedback engine, diagnosing system failure and validating behavioral impact in one motion.
That’s Experience Performance. That’s the new standard.
Because the call isn’t the story... it’s the signal. The real story is what caused it… and what happens next.
SHIFTING THE SYSTEM LANGUAGE
Here’s the uncomfortable truth most CX pros never get taught: You can’t lead executive change if you’re still speaking customer language in a business meeting.
That’s the translation gap killing credibility inside most organizations. We’re fluent in emotion, but illiterate in economics. We talk about satisfaction while the C-suite talks about sustainability. We sell stories when they buy systems.
Executives Don’t Wake Up Thinking About CX.
They wake up thinking about three things:
If your customer narrative doesn’t attach directly to one of those levers, you’re already tuned out.
So stop trying to “prove CX matters.” Start proving where CX pays off.
That’s the EPS mindset shift from empathy to economics.
How to Reframe Friction Into a P&L Problem
When you uncover a friction, you’re not surfacing an “insight.” You’re identifying a performance drag on the business.
That’s how you earn the table. Not by showing sentiment, but by showing loss.
Here’s how it looks in real life:
When you make friction a P&L conversation, something powerful happens executives stop seeing CX as a “program” and start seeing it as performance infrastructure.
They stop asking for ROI proof, because the ROI is sitting right there in front of them in cost, retention, and growth.
The New Language of Performance
CX leaders need to stop defending empathy and start quantifying trust. Because trust isn’t a feeling, it’s a financial asset.
Every time you remove a friction that prevents purchase, retention, or advocacy, you’re building decision velocity into the business. You’re accelerating the moments that create value and decelerating the ones that destroy it.
That’s how you sell experience. Not as kindness. As kinetics. As momentum. As P&L performance.
The EPS Rule of Thumb
If it can’t be tied to a business lever, it’s not a CX metric, it’s a comfort metric.
Your job isn’t to collect feedback. It’s to convert feedback into action that moves a number executives actually care about.
That’s the only language that travels upstairs.
Example: The Transformation in Action
Let’s go back to the contact center example.
Old framing:
“We need to improve response times; customers are frustrated waiting on hold.”
EPS framing:
“Every extra minute of response time adds $170K in recontact cost per quarter and increases first-year churn by 6%. Reducing time-to-resolution by 1 day could preserve $4.2M in CLV annually.”
That’s not a “CX request.” That’s a business case.
It’s the difference between hoping for support and commanding investment.
CX Doesn’t Need Buy-In. It Needs Translation.
The fastest way to lose executive attention is to show up as the empathy department. The fastest way to earn it is to show up as a performance partner.
So translate friction into financials. Quantify trust as a business outcome. And stop chasing “buy-in.”
Because you don’t need them to believe in CX. You need them to see the cost of not fixing it.
PLAYER TIPS - THE SHIFT FROM MANAGE TO PERFORM
Player Tip #1 - Measure to Perform, Not Manage.
If your metrics don’t connect to the P&L, you’re not measuring performance, you’re babysitting it.
Average Handle Time. QA Score. Adherence. These metrics tell you whether the agent did their job. They don’t tell you whether the business did.
Performance metrics live one layer deeper:
These are not vanity numbers, they’re velocity numbers. They show whether your system is creating forward motion or repeated friction.
So, rewire your KPI stack. Replace metrics that measure containment with metrics that measure confidence. Replace dashboards that manage efficiency with dashboards that drive effectiveness.
And when leadership asks for the business case? You won’t need one. You’ll have performance data that is the business case.
Player Rule: If a metric doesn’t tell you whether the customer trusted you enough to return, it’s not performance... it’s noise.
Player Tip #2 - Every Contact Tells a System Story.
Every call, every chat, every escalation is a signal. Not a score.
When you treat contact data as a burden, you miss the blueprint. When you treat it as a feedback engine, you build a system that learns in real time.
Every “Why did they call?” reveals one of three things:
Map these against cost, recontact, and revenue leakage and you’ll quickly see your biggest growth opportunities hiding inside your service logs.
Your contact center isn’t a cost center; it’s the heartbeat of business intelligence. The question is whether you’re listening.
Player Rule: Stop treating customer service data as call stats. Start treating it as organizational diagnostics.
When you track the breakdown, you prevent the call. When you prevent the call, you drive profitability.
Player Tip #3 - Move from Time Metrics to Trust Metrics.
The future of CX won’t be measured in seconds. It’ll be measured in confidence.
Customers don’t remember how fast you answered. They remember whether they could exhale when the call ended.
That’s trust. And trust compounds faster than efficiency ever will.
Replace “Average Speed of Answer” with “Experience Recovery Rate.”
Replace “After Call Work Time” with “Time-to-Trust Restored.”
Replace “First Contact Resolution” with “Recontact Rate Reduction.”
These metrics don’t just measure what happened, they measure what changed. That’s how you prove experience is performing for the business.
And here’s the kicker: Trust metrics travel. When you show a CFO that improving “Experience Recovery Rate” increased retention by 8% and reduced cost per acquisition by 12%, you’re no longer asking for budget... you’re earning it.
Player Rule: You don’t build loyalty by shaving seconds. You build it by delivering certainty.
THE FRAMEWORKS - FROM MANAGING SERVICE TO PERFORMING EXPERIENCE
Framework #1: The Contact Center Performance Map
How to move from reactive to performance-driven in 5 steps.
This is the “you can start this Monday” framework. It turns every contact into data, every data point into insight, and every insight into a business case.
Step 1: Tag Every Contact by Friction Type
EPS Insight:
The frequency of a friction tells you what’s broken. The cost of that friction tells you what to fix first.
Step 2: Quantify the Cost of the Friction
EPS Insight:
If it’s measurable, it’s fixable. The moment you put a dollar sign next to a friction, it becomes a business problem, not a CX problem.
Step 3: Identify Ownership Outside the Contact Center
EPS Insight:
The contact center owns the signal, not the cause. Stop trying to fix what the business created alone.
Step 4: Prioritize by Business Impact
EPS Insight:
Stop chasing what’s loudest. Fix what’s costing the most.
Step 5: Build the One-Page Business Case (The CX Case Maker)
EPS Insight:
You don’t get budget for “better service.” You get budget for revenue protection.
End Goal: Within 60 days, your contact center should have:
This is how you turn “We’re drowning in calls” into “We’re driving performance outcomes.”
Framework #2: The Resolution-to-Retention Loop
How to measure whether your service interaction actually changed customer behavior.
This one completes the system. Once you’ve diagnosed why the customer called, this tells you what happened next - the heartbeat of Experience Performance.
Step 1: Define the Desired Post-Call Behavior
EPS Insight:
You can’t manage what “success” means if you haven’t defined what success looks like.
Step 2: Build a Simple Tracking Loop
EPS Insight:
Don’t just measure how fast you answered. Measure how fast customers came back.
Step 3: Classify Each Resolution as Recovery, Neutral, or Loss
EPS Insight:
Not every resolution is a win. Some close the ticket others close the relationship.
Step 4: Add a Behavioral KPI Layer to Reporting
EPS Insight:
Your best service metric isn’t speed - it’s stickiness.
Step 5: Tie Resolution-to-Retention Data Back Into System Prioritization
EPS Insight:
Performance systems don’t end with the customer; they evolve because of them.
End Goal:
Together, These Frameworks Create the EPS Contact Center Operating Loop:
Friction ➜ Quantification ➜ Ownership ➜ Prioritization ➜ Resolution ➜ Behavioral Impact ➜ System Learning
That’s not “support.” That’s systemic performance.
That’s what happens when you stop managing customer service… and start running Experience Performance.
1 THOUGHT-PROVOKING QUESTION
When was the last time your contact center changed a customer’s behavior not just resolved their issue?
Let’s stop pretending the contact center is broken because of people. It’s broken because of the system they’re trapped in.
We’ve trained agents to chase seconds instead of outcomes. We’ve turned empathy into a script. We’ve rewarded control instead of confidence.
And we wonder why customers don’t trust us anymore.
But here’s the truth most executives can’t see from the dashboard: The contact center is the most underutilized performance engine in the entire business. It already has everything the rest of the company is starving for - real-time data, raw customer truth, and direct insight into what’s failing upstream.
The problem isn’t access. It’s translation.
CX leaders are still talking about satisfaction when the business wants to talk about sustainability. We keep trying to “prove CX matters” when what we really need to do is show where CX performs.
That’s the shift. From empathy as a feeling → to empathy as an outcome. From managing calls → to engineering behavior. From tracking handle time → to building customer lifetime.
Because you don’t build loyalty by monitoring effort. You build it by eliminating friction. You build it by connecting the dots between what the customer felt, what the business fixed, and what the balance sheet reflected.
That’s not customer service. That’s Experience Performance.
The contact center isn’t where experience ends. It’s where performance begins.
Every conversation is a mirror reflecting what’s broken in your system and an opportunity to rewrite how your business earns trust. But only if you stop managing for speed and start performing for impact.
Because at the end of the day, metrics don’t remember you. Customers do.
So ask yourself -
When was the last time your contact center changed a customer’s behavior, not just resolved their issue?
If you can’t answer that, you’re not underperforming. You’re under-measuring.
And the cost of that? It’s not in your call logs. It’s in your P&L.
It's time to unf*ck the contact center.
Change Executive Officer | CEO | Transformation Manager | Interim Executive | Keynote & Podcast Speaker
1wEverything starts and falls with a clear idea what you REALLY want to achieve ✌️
Founding Principal, The Linkage Group: Building superior business outcomes and stakeholder value by linking and integrating customer experience, employee experience, enterprise culture, and brand perception.
1wThis represents your most pessimistic CX-future concerns and admonitions, expressed in one five-line message. And, if not everywhere, it's still in far too many places and is emblematic of too many executive mindsets..