Client called my analytics report 'noise' and it stung

I was showing a client in Chicago a monthly dashboard I had spent 8 hours building with 15 different metrics, and they said 'this is just noise, not strategy.' They wanted 3 numbers that actually tied to their sales pipeline (conversion rate, cost per lead, and time-to-close). Has anyone else had to strip down their reporting after a client called them out?

2 comments

2 Comments

lewis.diana29d ago

Oh man, this HITS. I had a client in Austin last year who looked at my 12-page report and said "this is like reading a menu in a language I don't speak." I was so proud of all those extra metrics too. Turns out they just wanted their top 3 sales numbers and nothing else. I felt like such an idiot for wasting all that time. Now I always ask first what numbers they actually look at, and I keep it to 5 things max.

ellis.charles29d ago

Wait, you spent 8 hours on that dashboard? And they just called it noise with one word? Man, that would have made me angry for a week. I get why they wanted just those three numbers, but eight hours is a lot of work to just throw away. I bet you had some useful stuff in there they never even saw.