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FIELD GUIDE 24
The three-number dashboard
A dashboard nobody reads is worse than no dashboard, because it creates the feeling of being measured without any of the benefit.
The test for any metric is simple and brutal: if this number moved, what would you do differently? If there is no answer, it does not belong on the dashboard. Almost everything in a standard marketing report fails that test.
The three numbers
Enquiries, by source
Every call, form, message and walk-in, counted, with where it came from.
If it goes up you know what is working. If it goes down you know where to look. One field on your intake: how did you hear about us.
Response time, median
The gap between an enquiry arriving and a human making contact. Median, not average, because one bad outlier hides a good week.
This is the number most directly under your control and the one most likely to be quietly terrible.
Reviews received this month
Because recency is what customers judge you on, and because a review flow that stops has usually stopped silently.
WHY THESE THREE
They map to the three failure points of a local service business: not enough people asking, taking too long to answer the ones who do, and not enough current proof to win the ones you answer. Nearly every growth problem is one of those three, and each of these numbers points straight at a specific fix.
What to leave off
- Website sessions. Increasingly disconnected from enquiries as search answers questions without a click.
- Social followers. Does not predict revenue for a local service business.
- Impressions and reach. No decision follows from them.
- Bounce rate. Frequently misread, and for a single-page answer often a sign of success.
- Keyword rankings. Personalised, location-dependent, and no longer the thing that produces the visit.
- Email open rates. Materially unreliable since mail privacy protection began inflating them.
Build it in a spreadsheet
Do not buy a dashboard tool. One sheet, four columns, updated on the same day each week.
| Week ending | Enquiries (by source) | Median response time | Reviews received |
|---|---|---|---|
| 04 Aug | 31 (Google 18, referral 7, repeat 6) | 22 min | 3 |
| 11 Aug | 27 (Google 14, referral 9, repeat 4) | 41 min | 2 |
| 18 Aug | 34 (Google 21, referral 8, repeat 5) | 17 min | 4 |
The rules that keep it alive
- Same day every week, fifteen minutes, one named person.
- Write the number even when it is bad. Especially when it is bad.
- Review the trend monthly, not weekly. Weekly numbers are noise; the direction over eight weeks is signal.
- One action per month, chosen from whichever number looks worst.
- If a number has not driven a decision in three months, replace it.
FIG. 03 · SOURCES, CHECKED 2 AUGUST 2026
Every number above was traced to its primary source before publication. Where a widely repeated figure could not be verified at the source, it was cut rather than repeated.
- VerifiedOldroyd, McElheran and Elkington, Harvard Business Review, March 2011 Basis for response time as one of the three: firms contacting within an hour were nearly 7x more likely to qualify a lead, and 23% of the 2,241 companies audited never responded at all.
- VerifiedBrightLocal, Local Consumer Review Survey 2026 Basis for reviews-per-month rather than lifetime total: 74% of consumers only consider reviews from the last three months.
RANKTHREAD
Three numbers you act on beat forty you read
The point of a dashboard is not visibility, it is a decision every month. Three numbers, fifteen minutes a week, one action. That is the whole system.
RANKTHREAD
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