Which of the following statements is a leading KPI for “Customer satisfaction (%)”?

A leading KPI is an upstream operational measure that tends to change before the outcome KPI changes. Customer satisfaction is usually influenced by experience drivers such as responsiveness, wait time, delivery speed, and service reliability. “Orders processed per hour” is a productivity/throughput KPI that can serve as a proxy driver for faster service and reduced delays—conditions that often improve satisfaction (assuming quality is maintained). “Retained earnings ($)” is financial and lagging; it reflects accumulated profitability, not a direct operational lever for satisfaction. “Profitable customers (%)” is a segment profitability metric, not a driver of satisfaction; if anything, satisfaction may drive retention and profitability, not the reverse. “None of the answers” is not correct given a plausible driver exists. In KPI design, leading indicators must be used carefully: increasing throughput can harm quality if it encourages rushing, so it’s good practice to balance productivity KPIs with quality KPIs (error rate, rework, complaints) to prevent gaming. For dashboards, the best leading KPIs are those teams can influence daily and that correlate strongly with satisfaction in your context.