Completion rate is not the same as step quality
Teams often celebrate a rising completion rate and stop looking. That number tells you how many journeys ended—not how many nearly failed along the way.
Measure time-on-step, retry counts, and back-navigation beside finish rate. A workflow that finishes 78% of the time but forces three retries on step four is not healthy; it is merely surviving.
Weight completion by business outcome. Finishing a free trial signup is not the same as finishing a paid upgrade path. Report them separately so leadership does not average away the risk.
When you brief stakeholders, lead with the step that costs the most abandonments, not the headline finish percentage.