While working in the marketing department of XYZ Corp, our team encountered a situation where the sales department was celebrating a rise in average order value (AOV), but we noticed a drastic drop in customer count. The seemingly opposite metrics alarmed us since a high AOV is traditionally viewed as a positive indicator.
Upon investigating, we realised that the higher AOV was a result of increased pricing rather than an actual spike in product demand. The price hike had driven away cost-sensitive customers, resulting in a drop in total customer count.
We resolved this by initiating a sensitive price change strategy to slowly roll back prices while introducing new premium products to keep the AOV stable. This situation emphasized the need to always look beyond the numbers and understand the context when analyzing KPIs.