I was working with a client today, they chose CSAT as their north star metric. I wanted to scream, nooooo.

When coming up with three metrics for a product design case, you want to show off a few key skills:

1. Measuring User Behavior

2. Linking Goals (outcomes) to User Actions

3. Understanding the most important Metrics

4. Ability to work with Engineering to Log Metrics

Why CSAT Fails (in PM Cases)

Yes, in some cases you need to measure customer satisfaction and it is a great research tool. But, in an interview case, it often seems like a cop-out.

The interviewer is looking to see if you can work with engineering to determine what needs to be measured and why. I am looking to see if you can really execute with metrics. You need to show that you can think about what in the product logs will help you measure desired activity.

Note on Proxy Metrics

Often time, you need to pick a sub-par metric because you can’t measure your truly desired outcome directly in any consistent and meaningful way. I would prefer to see a candidate pick a directionally correct metric (imperfect though it may be) from log data rather than cheat and jump to CSAT (Customer Satisfaction Score) or NPS (Net Promoter Score).