CX Strategic Knowledge · CX Methods
Google HEART Framework (With Caveats)
HEART is a useful lens, but Task Success is the only letter that puts the customer first.
Google's HEART framework covers Happiness, Engagement, Adoption, Retention, and Task Success. It works as a lens, not a scorecard. When engagement dominates or happiness is over-indexed, the framework turns against the customer. Task Success is the metric that matters most.
HEART gives teams a shared vocabulary: Happiness, Engagement, Adoption, Retention, Task Success. That is its value. The danger starts when teams treat every letter as equally important and chase the ones that are easiest to move.
- Engagement dominates the conversation
- Retention gets counted without asking about quality
- Happiness scores get over-indexed
The most customer-centric metrics in the set are Task Success and, where it applies, Time on Task. Did the customer accomplish what they came to do, and how long did it take? Everything else in HEART is easier to game and further from the customer's actual outcome.
Apply this
Reading about google heart framework (with caveats) is one thing. Seeing where it applies in your journey is the useful part.