How we count | HumanOps

Vocabulary

One word, one meaning

ASD-STE100 Simplified Technical English is the controlled language of aerospace maintenance manuals. Its principle: one word, one meaning. HumanOps applies the principle to every measurement word. The STE dictionary itself is a licensed specification and is not copied. Where this page says conversation, no tile, tooltip or report says anything else for the same thing.

The core terms, what counts, their base and their source
Term	What counts	Base	Source	Rule
Conversations started	Conversations with at least one visitor turn	A count, no base	Sophia conversation records	A conversation runs from the visitor's Start to its end and has at least one visitor turn.
Meaningful conversations	Conversations with at least 3 visitor turns and one substantive Sophia action	A count, no base	Sophia conversation records	A conversation counts with at least 3 visitor turns and one substantive Sophia action. The actions are an evidence answer, qualification, contact, booking or handoff. The turn threshold is provisional.
Sophia-qualified buyers	Distinct buyers with a conversation that met the qualification rule	A count, no base	Sophia conversation records	A buyer counts when a conversation met your criteria and the HumanOps minimum of fit plus an explicit next step. An anonymous buyer counts once per conversation.
Sales-accepted buyers North Star	Distinct Sophia-qualified buyers whose latest sales decision is accepted	A count, no base	CRM field, otherwise a sales rep click in Sophia's message	A buyer counts when the customer's sales team accepted a buyer that Sophia qualified. The latest decision for a buyer wins. Each buyer counts once per period.
Meetings booked	Meetings that Sophia booked and the buyer confirmed	A count, no base	Sophia booking record	A meeting counts on the day Sophia booked it. A later cancellation does not remove it from this count. Cancellations show on the second layer.
Meetings held	Sophia-booked meetings with the state held	A count, no base	CRM or calendar, otherwise a sales rep click	A meeting counts when Sophia booked it and the CRM, the calendar or a sales rep marked it held. Meetings that other channels booked do not count.
Commercial requests	Distinct requests for a quote, a document, a callback or a trial	A count, no base	Sophia conversation records	A request counts once per conversation and request type. The types are quote, document, callback and trial.
Handoffs	Conversations that Sophia handed off to a named person or queue	A count, no base	Sophia conversation records	Sophia hands off when the buyer asks for a person or a rule requires one.
Sourced opportunities	CRM opportunities that the strict sourced rule assigns to Sophia	A count, no base	Customer CRM	Sourced means the contact was new to the CRM and the opportunity was created inside the window after the first conversation. An opportunity created before the conversation is never sourced.
Influenced opportunities (not causal)	CRM opportunities with a Sophia conversation inside the window that are not sourced	A count, no base	Customer CRM	Influenced means a Sophia conversation took place inside the window, but origin was elsewhere. This is not a causal claim.
Closed-won sourced opportunities	Sourced opportunities with the stage closed-won	A count, no base	Customer CRM	A sourced opportunity that the CRM shows as won. The window applies to the creation date only.

Every rate names its base
Rate	Counts	Per
Meaningful conversations per conversation	Meaningful conversations	Conversations started
Qualified buyers per conversation	Conversations that met the qualification rule	Conversations started
Sales acceptance per qualified buyer	Qualified buyers of the period that the sales team accepted	Qualified buyers of the period with a decision
Held per meeting with an outcome	Meetings held	Meetings held plus no-shows
Supported-answer rate	Answers that cite at least one approved source	Substantive answers Sophia gave
Contact given per conversation	Conversations where the buyer gave contact details on purpose	Conversations started
Conversations per impression	Conversations started	Impressions of Sophia's entry point

A rate with a base below 30 shows counts, x of y, with a small sample mark.
A rate with a zero base has no value, never zero percent.
Records waiting for an outcome stay out of the base and show as pending.
A meaningful conversation has at least 3 visitor turns and one substantive Sophia action: an evidence answer, qualification, contact, booking or handoff. The turn threshold is provisional.

Data classes

Every number says what kind it is

Observed

Counted from Sophia, calendar or CRM records.

Example: Meetings held

Attributed

Assigned to Sophia by a stated rule.

Example: Sourced opportunities

Modelled

Computed from an assumption.

Example: Cost per held meeting

Illustrative

Synthetic, for demonstration.

Example: The example cabinet's data

Each class has a fixed place on this site. On the cabinet every tile carries one class tag. The example cabinet shows only Illustrative, under a banner that says so. A live cabinet shows Observed, Attributed or Modelled.

The calculator shows "Illustrative example" at the defaults and "Modelled from your inputs" after a change. Its implementation plan section carries "Plan, not yet measured at a customer". Cost per held meeting is modelled from usage minutes and published prices, without the HumanOps fee. A number never carries two classes.

Attribution

Sourced names the result of a rule

An opportunity in your CRM is sourced only when all of this holds.

A conversation

The buyer talked to Sophia

Matched by an email the buyer typed or spoke, or by a contact your CRM already holds.

A new contact

The contact was new to your CRM

Your CRM says the contact did not exist before the first Sophia conversation.

Inside the window

The opportunity came in time

The opportunity was created in your CRM inside the window after the first conversation. An opportunity created before the conversation is never sourced.

The window

The window is 90 days for SaaS companies and 180 days for industrial companies. Your company can set another value, and the cabinet prints the window it uses. The window applies to the creation date only, so a sourced opportunity that closes later stays sourced.

Influenced, shown apart

Influenced means the buyer had a Sophia conversation inside the window, but the opportunity does not meet the sourced rule. The cabinet shows influenced opportunities apart from sourced ones, labelled not causal, and never adds the two together.

Sourced says the rule assigned the opportunity to Sophia. It does not say the opportunity would not exist without Sophia. Causal wording needs a control group.

Identification

Sophia identifies a buyer only by an email the visitor typed or spoke, or by a contact your CRM already holds. No IP lookup, no third-party enrichment, no fingerprinting.

Sources

Where each number comes from

Every cabinet tile opens a Definition panel that names the system its number comes from. The table groups the dictionary by source.

Sources and the numbers they feed
Source	Numbers it feeds
CRM field, otherwise a sales rep click in Sophia's message	Sales-accepted buyers
Sophia conversation records	Sophia-qualified buyers, Commercial requests, Meaningful conversations, Supported-answer rate, Conversations started, Meaningful conversations per conversation, Qualified buyers per conversation, Handoffs, Not a fit, Contact given per conversation
CRM or calendar, otherwise a sales rep click	Meetings held, Held per meeting with an outcome
Sophia booking record	Meetings booked
Usage minutes times published prices	Cost per held meeting
CRM field, otherwise a sales rep click	Sales acceptance per qualified buyer
Sophia booking record or calendar	Meetings cancelled
Own cookieless aggregate counter, otherwise the customer's analytics	Conversations per impression
Customer CRM	Sourced opportunities, Sourced opportunity value, Influenced opportunities (not causal), Closed-won sourced opportunities
Gap Inbox	Knowledge gaps

Late outcomes arrive days or months after the conversation and show as pending until then.
Definitions carry a version. A change gets a dated note, and old series are never restated silently.

Limits

Counts under a published rule

HumanOps grades every figure it publishes on this ladder.

Evidence levels
Level	Meaning
A	A controlled experiment with a visitor-level control group
B	An outcome observed in the CRM under a published rule
C	A before-and-after comparison with a defined base
D	Influenced or multi-touch attribution
E	A vendor calculation, a survey or an anecdote

A public HumanOps figure needs level B at least: counts under a published rule, never a multiple.
A comparison with the previous period is level C at best and never states a cause.
Causal wording needs level A: a controlled experiment with a control group.
Anonymous aggregate counts across HumanOps customers appear only once a set minimum number of customers is reached, at level B. They are never presented as the market; the KPI study explains why.
HumanOps does not promise a percentage increase in anything until it has its own evidence.
The cabinet shows no return figure and no time saved. The business case is a scenario model from your own inputs and stays apart from observed data.

Approved term and the words not used for it
Approved term	Not used
visitor	user, users, traffic
conversation	chat, chats, session, sessions, interaction, interactions, engagement, dialog, dialogue
turn	utterance, utterances
supported answer	grounded answer, accurate answer, correct answer
qualified buyer	lead, leads, MQL, MQLs, SQL, SQLs, AQL, AQLs, prospect, prospects
not a fit	junk, bad lead
meeting booked	scheduled, appointment, appointments, demo set
meeting held	completed meeting, attended, showed up
no-show	ghosted
handoff	escalation, escalations, transfer, routing
opportunity	deal, deals, pipeline
sourced	generated, driven by Sophia, created by Sophia
influenced	assisted, touched, contributed
closed-won	revenue, sale, sales
release	version bump
period	timeframe, time frame
comparison period	baseline
One verb per action: answers, shows, qualifies, books, hands off	responds, presents, scores, schedules, escalates
No promise words	conversion rate, uplift, lift, ROI, boost, boosts, guaranteed, market average

Definitions version 2026-10-10.1, exported from the Sophia measurement code. The same definitions drive the example cabinet, and a test keeps the two in step.

One definition, one source,
one base per rate

Up to the held meeting

What Sophia is accountable for

Reported from your CRM, outside the boundary