# Chapter 1: The Misery Metric Miranda Phelps stared at the customer satisfaction report on her tablet. The numbers were abysmal, and Google's support division had reached an all-time low in user satisfaction, with a pathetic 22% approval rating. She scrolled through the data again, hoping to find some error or a positive trend buried somewhere in the analytics, though there wasn't one. She glanced at her watch. The executive meeting would start in ten minutes, and she had nothing positive to report. Again. The Support Director position at Google was supposed to be her career pinnacle. Instead, it felt like she was captaining a sinking ship while the executives watched from the shore with binoculars, counting the seconds until she drowned. "Coffee?" her assistant Eric asked, placing a steaming cup on her desk. "Thanks." Miranda took a sip and winced. The coffee was lukewarm and bitter. Perfect complement to the day she was having. "The numbers aren't getting any better, huh?" Eric peered over her shoulder at the tablet. "They're getting worse. We've implemented every best practice in customer support, and we've revamped training. We've increased staff, but nothing works." She closed the report with a swipe of her finger. "The more we try to help people, the more they hate us, unfortunately." Eric nodded sympathetically. "Users are impossible to please. Last week I spent two hours helping someone recover their account, and they still gave me a one-star rating because it 'took too long.'" Miranda stood up and gathered her materials for the meeting. "Well, I'm off to get grilled by people who've never spoken to an actual customer, though I suppose that's part of the job." "Good luck," Eric called after her as she headed for the elevator. The conference room on the 42nd floor offered a stunning view of the San Francisco skyline. Miranda barely noticed it anymore. She took her seat at the long glass table where ten other division heads and three C-suite executives were already seated. CEO Phillip Wagner sat at the head, scrolling through his phone with a bored expression. "Let's get started," he said without looking up. "Quarterly reports. Miranda, let's begin with Support since that's where we left off last time." Miranda cleared her throat. "Thank you, Phillip. Support division's numbers are... challenging this quarter." She pulled up her presentation on the room's display. A graph showed customer satisfaction in free fall. "We've seen a continued decline despite implementing the improvement strategies approved in our last meeting." The Chief Revenue Officer, Diane Mercer, frowned. "We allocated an additional twelve million to your department for those improvements. What happened?" "We're dealing with fundamental issues in how users interact with our platforms," Miranda explained. "The complexity of our products has increased, but user patience has decreased. People want instant solutions to complicated problems, and of course, that creates a difficult situation for support staff." "Everyone else seems to manage," Phillip said. "Apple's support satisfaction is at 87%. Even Facebook is at 58%." "To be fair," Miranda countered, "Apple has far fewer products, and Facebook users have much lower expectations." The room fell silent. Miranda realized she was digging herself deeper. "What I mean is—" "What you mean," Phillip interrupted, "is that your team can't figure out how to make customers happy. Is that about right?" Miranda looked down at her notes. "We're trying new approaches, although we haven't found the right solution yet." "Try harder," Phillip said. "Next, marketing." As the marketing director began his presentation, Miranda's phone vibrated with a message from her team lead, Rajiv: *System overload. Half the team called in sick. Others drowning in tickets. What should we do?* She discreetly typed back: *Just handle critical cases and give brief answers to the rest. We'll catch up tomorrow, though it won't be easy.* The meeting droned on for another hour, and Miranda barely paid attention, her mind racing with how she would restructure the department after the inevitable budget cuts that would follow this quarter's report. When the meeting finally ended, she gathered her things quickly, hoping to escape before anyone could corner her with more questions. "Miranda, hold back a moment," Phillip called as everyone filed out. She froze, then turned back. "Yes?" Phillip waited until the room was empty. "Look, I know Support is a thankless job. But these numbers are becoming a serious concern to the board." "I understand. We're working on—" "I'm giving you until the end of the quarter to turn this around. If not, we'll need to consider restructuring the department. Under different leadership, of course." The threat couldn't have been clearer. "Understood," she said. As she rode the elevator back to her floor, Miranda's phone buzzed again. It was Rajiv: *Strange thing happening. Getting complaints about nonsensical answers some team members gave today. But engagement metrics on those accounts are up 40%.* Miranda frowned at the message. What nonsensical answers? She had told them to be brief, not absurd. Back at her office, she found Rajiv waiting for her. The team lead looked simultaneously worried and confused. "What's this about nonsensical answers?" she asked. Rajiv showed her his tablet. "When the system got overloaded, some of the team just... gave up and started giving ridiculous troubleshooting steps to non-priority users." "Like what?" "Like telling a user to restart their phone while standing on one foot or suggesting they speak affirmations to their device to improve battery life. One guy told a customer to put their Pixel in rice—when it wasn't even wet, which is obviously absurd." Miranda stared at him. "And they did this because...?" Rajiv shrugged. "Burnout, probably. They've been working overtime for weeks. But here's the weird thing." He swiped to a new screen. "Look at the engagement metrics for those users." The data showed that users who received these absurd responses were spending significantly more time on Google platforms afterward—not less. "That can't be right," Miranda said, although the numbers were clearly there. "I double-checked. Users who got ridiculous advice spent an average of 42 minutes longer on our products the same day, compared to users who received standard troubleshooting." Miranda sat down at her desk, thinking. "Do we know why?" "My theory? They're trying different things, searching for better answers, and asking friends. When we give them standard solutions that don't work, they get frustrated and leave. But when we give them clearly wrong answers, they stay engaged trying to figure it out themselves." An idea began to form in Miranda's mind. "Pull the data for the last six months. I want to see if there's any correlation between support satisfaction and actual platform engagement." While Rajiv worked on gathering the data, Miranda paced her office. What if they'd been approaching this all wrong? What if making users happy wasn't actually the goal they should be pursuing? Three hours later, Rajiv returned with a comprehensive report. The pattern was undeniable. Users who reported the highest satisfaction with support actually spent less time on Google platforms afterward. They got their solution and moved on. Users who struggled spent more time engaged, generated more ad views, and ultimately provided more revenue. "This changes everything," Miranda said, staring at the data. "We've been measuring the wrong metrics." "What do you mean?" Rajiv asked. "Customer satisfaction doesn't translate to engagement. Frustration does, surprisingly." She pointed to a specific graph. "Look, when users receive quick, efficient solutions, they spend an average of 17 minutes on our platforms that day. When they receive solutions that don't quite work, though, that jumps to 56 minutes." Rajiv looked uncomfortable. "So you're saying we should deliberately give bad advice?" "Not bad," Miranda corrected. "Incomplete. Confusing. Make them work for it." The more she thought about it, the more sense it made, although it felt ethically questionable. "Nevertheless, we need to test this theory." The next morning, Miranda selected a small team of five support agents and brought them into a private meeting room. She chose people who showed signs of burnout—they'd be more receptive to what she was about to propose. "I'm starting a pilot program," she told them. "For the next week, I want you to handle your tickets differently." One of the agents, a tired-looking man named Kevin, raised an eyebrow. "Differently how?" "Instead of giving clear, direct answers, I want you to provide solutions that are... roundabout. Technically correct, but requiring additional steps or research from the user, though still within reason." The team exchanged glances. "You want us to be deliberately unhelpful?" asked Zoe, another agent. "I want you to be strategically incomplete," Miranda clarified. "Don't tell them to do something harmful, but maybe suggest they try resetting obscure settings or use features that are hard to find. Make them work for the solution, and see how they respond." "And this is approved by management?" Kevin asked skeptically. "This is a pilot I'm running personally. The data suggests it could improve overall platform engagement." Miranda didn't mention that this was her last-ditch effort to save her job. "Just try it for a week. Only on non-critical cases." After some additional reassurance, the team reluctantly agreed. Miranda set up special tracking on their tickets to monitor the results. Three days later, the preliminary data exceeded her expectations. Users who received the "strategic" support spent triple the time on Google products compared to the control group. They searched more, visited help forums, watched tutorial videos, and in the process, viewed significantly more ads. By the end of the week, the pattern was clear and consistent. Frustrated users were engaged users, and engaged users were profitable users. Miranda compiled the results into a presentation and scheduled a private meeting with Phillip. She needed to move carefully—pitching this as a feature, not a bug. She titled her proposal "Operational Engagement Enhancement." The core concept: Support should focus on maintaining user engagement rather than quick resolution. Practically speaking, this meant providing support that kept users working with Google products longer—even if that meant a more frustrating experience, though she avoided stating it quite so bluntly. The night before her meeting with Phillip, Miranda sat in her office late, refining her presentation. The data was compelling, but she knew she was proposing something that flew in the face of conventional customer service wisdom. She needed to frame it in terms executives would embrace—engagement, retention, and revenue, although she felt a twinge of doubt about the ethical implications. Her phone buzzed with a text from Eric: *Just checking if you're still here. Security said your car's been in the lot for 14 hours.* *Still working,* she replied. *Big presentation tomorrow, and I need to get it right.* *Want me to order dinner?* *Already ate.* She hadn't, but food was the last thing on her mind. Miranda stared out her office window at the city lights. Was she really going to propose that Google's support team stop trying to be helpful? The idea felt simultaneously brilliant and terrible. But the numbers didn't lie, and numbers were all that mattered in the end, though she couldn't quite silence her conscience. The next morning, Miranda presented her findings to Phillip in his private office. She watched his expression shift from skepticism to interest as she walked through the data. "So you're saying," he summarized when she finished, "that when support gives users clear, immediate solutions, they leave our platforms faster." "Exactly," Miranda confirmed. "By providing support that requires users to remain engaged with our ecosystem, we increase time spent, ad views, and ultimately revenue, although it goes against traditional support models." Phillip leaned back in his chair. "It's counterintuitive." "But the data is clear," Miranda pointed to the final slide. "The test group showed a 213% increase in platform engagement after receiving what we're calling 'engagement-focused support.'" "And what exactly does 'engagement-focused support' mean in practice?" Miranda chose her words carefully. "It means providing support that guides users through longer processes within our ecosystem rather than quick fixes. Sometimes that means more steps, sometimes it means less direct solutions." Phillip studied her for a moment. "You're proposing we deliberately make support less efficient." "I'm proposing we optimize for engagement rather than satisfaction," Miranda corrected. "Traditional metrics like customer satisfaction don't correlate with actual business outcomes, though it may seem counterintuitive at first." After a long pause, Phillip nodded slowly. "Draft a company-wide initiative. I want to see this implemented across all non-critical support channels." "Thank you," Miranda said, trying to contain her relief. "I'll have something on your desk by end of day." Back in her office, Miranda sat down to draft what would become known as the "Operational Engagement Enhancement" initiative. As she typed, she couldn't help but smile at how corporate language could make even the most dubious ideas sound legitimate. The document outlined a complete restructuring of support metrics, shifting from satisfaction ratings to engagement time. Support agents would be evaluated not on how quickly they resolved issues, but on how long users remained engaged with Google products after receiving support. At 6:37 PM, Miranda sent the final draft to Phillip with the subject line: "Operational Engagement Enhancement Initiative - For Review." His response came back seven minutes later: "Approved. Implement immediately." Miranda leaned back in her chair, a mixture of triumph and disbelief washing over her. She had just convinced Google to fundamentally change its approach to customer support, and she felt both powerful and uncertain. Whether this was the most brilliant or most disastrous move of her career remained to be seen. But for now, she had saved her job and possibly discovered a whole new approach to user engagement, though only time would tell if it was sustainable. She opened a new document and began typing: "Operational Engagement Enhancement: Implementation Guidelines." The customer service world was about to change. And Miranda Phelps would be leading the revolution.