Summary
Mastercard is in the middle of a shift in how decisions are made throughout the product development lifecycle, with data-informed design at the center. A suite of measurements have been developed to quantify the quality of products and the resulting experiences at points across the product lifecycle, so teams can have customer-centric conversations about opportunities and risks. Hear more about these CX Metrics and how we’ve infused them into the product development lifecycle to exert influence across dozens of products across the company.
Key Insights
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MasterCard shifted focus from product launch success to sustained adoption, retention, and partner implementation to drive revenue.
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They developed three standardized CX metrics: Concept Desirability Score, Design Quality Score, and Partner Onboarding Gold Standards to measure product quality throughout development.
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Concept Desirability Scores are rapid, low-cost tests of multiple early ideas to identify opportunity areas and course correct early.
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Design Quality Scores dive deep on a single product’s user journey, onboarding, and emotional interactions to improve execution.
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Partner Onboarding Gold Standards quantify implementation quality with cross-functional self-assessments tied to executive incentives.
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Poor initial design quality can be revealed through these metrics—as with the subscription service example—leading to redesigned, higher-scoring solutions.
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The CX metrics integrate with MasterCard’s stage gate product framework enabling targeted, timely decision making and reducing costly rework.
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Their system actively discourages common anti-patterns like hippo-driven feature creep, mistaking pilot willingness for market demand, and misaligned incentives.
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Human coaching remains vital to prevent gaming the system and to help product teams interpret metrics as tools for learning and iteration.
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Leadership support and embedding these metrics into performance goals help create accountability and cultural adoption despite initial resistance.
Notable Quotes
"We’ve found a way to use data to speak the language of business while tying it back into our values as designers to build better products."
"Launching something small at MasterCard is inherently huge because of our global scale and complex partnerships."
"Hippo culture is building things based on the highest paid person's opinion, no insights, just vibes."
"Willingness to pilot is not the same as willingness to pay."
"Concept Desirability Scores take about eight days and can replace months of traditional research for early risk identification."
"Design Quality Scores look at all touchpoints, emotional interactions, and the cognitive journey to fine-tune product adoption."
"We don’t want product teams doing research just to check a box—they need to own and act on the insights."
"Partner Onboarding Gold Standards act like a carrot-shaped stick tied to executive bonuses to push speed to revenue without sacrificing quality."
"People think automation will replace authenticity, but right now, human intervention is still required to ensure quality."
"The scores are a means to an end to encourage behavior change, not to create fear or just produce numbers."
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